


the mist upon the hill

by BucketofWater



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Actually Intensely Requited Love, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Assumed Unrequited Love, Caleb is bad at trust, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Serious Canon divergence, Soulmates, everyone is bad at communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:19:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 70,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BucketofWater/pseuds/BucketofWater
Summary: Caleb is a mottled canvas of thin, white lacerations so many that Nott can hardly begin to count them all, she wouldn’t even know where to begin.Or, the soulmate au where some soulmates share injuries and Caleb is very tired and very sore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all I'd like to say that Mollymauk is ruining my life and my soul and after that I'd like to apologise because this is so self indulgent it's insane. 
> 
> Generally in this universe soulmates are a concept that just clicks together, you meet them and you just suddenly know. Sometimes there are variants like soulmarks or words, sometimes there is wound deflection. Caleb is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of Mollymauk's swords and he is pretty tired of it.
> 
> also this chapter has spoilers for the carnival story arc! please be careful of that :)

Caleb is six and a grotesque, purple bruise paints his elbow like a watercolour canvas.

His mother kisses it better and the sting vanishes with the press of her warm, smiling mouth.

He is so in awe that he forgets to tell her that he had not even knocked it at all.

\-----

Caleb is nine years old and a very good reader.

His mother had proudly told her friends as such and Caleb had tried very hard not to preen at their approving gazes. He enjoys being good at something; he can take solace in it when he is not strong enough to survive scraps or quick enough to win races or when the other boys do something better than he ever could dream. At least he is a good reader he will assure himself with the juvenile ignorance of someone unaware of plights outside of their own immediate gratification.

There is something so immensely pleasing about being absorbed by a book, envisioning the voice behind the words and the fantastical tales woven into the parchment. It is very much like magic. Caleb is dreadfully fond of magic, too.

He likes how it makes his tongue feel like cotton when he recites incantations and how the primal magics sizzle against the pads of his fingers when he conjures forth the mana, watches the pallid blue taper off of his fingers like a cluster of spindly spider legs.

So he sits alone and he reads and he becomes incredibly intimate with how magic feels deep in his bones, almost bruising.

Then something not so familiar sends a shock of pain barrelling up through his leg. Caleb jolts away from his parchments, scattering them about him like a flock of disgruntled birds and he rolls his trouser leg up to the knee. He blinks at the glossy, weeping wound there, red and oozing a string of crimson blood.

He must be dying, he thinks very suddenly, a very mature realisation to make all on his own.

His mother finds him two hours later, hands stained red with his own dried blood and fat tears carving damp trails across his quivering cheeks.

She pulls him into her embrace, soothes his hair with her delicate touch and Caleb cries for what feels like hours.

\-----

Caleb is twelve years old and his soulmate is an asshole.

When his mother’s physician had informed him of his peculiar bond Caleb had almost been enthralled - it was as if he were suddenly one of the valiant knights from his books, the kind with the soulbond so strong that their wounds were deflected! Except it had only taken Caleb five whole days and an abundance of rereading to realise that the knights never bore the wounds, it was always their unfortunate, smitten partner, some vulnerable damsel with wet eyes and papery skin.

His mother had held him softly and gave him no words of comfort, because that was just how it worked, it was twisted and vile and so seriously manipulated. Some soulbonds (not many, mind you) run deeper than blood and bone and dip into the veiled realms of the infinite, which really meant that sometimes two soulmates can share injuries, and usually only one unfortunate sod is the recipient. While it is almost fantastical in theory, for consider a soldier who cannot be felled because no matter his wound it is borne by his soulmate, it is so dreadfully terrifying.

Caleb hopes that his soulmate is not a soldier.

He hopes that they are not a fool.

A frigid breeze greets him one late evening; Caleb comes awake with a start and a hiss of pain, sitting up on his mattress and staring into the encompassing abyssal darkness of his room. For a few delirious moments he wonders what woke him so fiercely, sure his throat is a little sore from his snoring but other than that he was almost tranquil. He turns to roll over and bites back a hiss as a sharp, stinging pain emblazons itself across his hip.

With a cold, shaking hand he peels back the layer of his undershirt and makes out the impression of a deep, aching laceration. It crosses his skin almost neatly, and Caleb touches a trembling finger to it, inhales deeply as the wound stings in protest.

It is almost as if a dagger had sliced his skin, and Caleb feels a swell of nausea burn his throat.

Caleb pointedly pulls his fur covers up to his chin and falls back into a restless sleep.

\-----

Now that Caleb is almost sixteen his mother does not speak of him much.

He does not mind being excluded, he would likely decline any invitation to her social events anyway, he prefers to sit in his chambers and to read his texts, to decipher the words and to draw on their magics. When the studies become too much he now has Frumpkin, the lazy tabby who occasionally graces Caleb with a swatting paw when he is hungry for something that he cannot pilfer himself, like the good cheese in the pantry.

Leaving the house is not really something he is overly fond of thinking about, not when he is aching and sore and so very tired. Nearly everyday without fail for the passing month he has been probed and bitten by phantom blades, carving threads of his skin apart, leaving him tattered and worn and exhausted.

Yesterday a bolt of pain had painted itself across his cheek, leaving behind a thin, bleeding wound that his mother had watched appear with the detachment of a stranger and she had left Caleb alone to cover the wound with his palm as another similar shock of pain drew across his ribs.

Somewhere out in the world his soulmate is being flayed alive and they do not even feel it. But Caleb does, he feels it all and he despises it, despises whoever is doing this, he wants so terribly to know why that it makes him sick with anger.

On some days he wants to go out and to kill those who harm him, he is certain that he knows a few spells that can mangle a man and on others, the days where he finds himself sodden and weepy, he wants to find his soulmate and swaddle them away, just for a moment of peace.

He cannot do any of this because he has no clue who is soulmate is, however.

Caleb misses his mother, misses how her touch would make the phantom pains vanish, how her words would conjure his smile. It must pain her to watch something she had poured so much energy and pride into be torn to nothing by a stranger, she must feel as helpless as Caleb is in this situation.

Caleb sits alone in his room surrounded by his books and his scrolls and hates his soulmate so fiercely that his heart burns and his breath falls short.

\-----

Caleb is a mottled canvas of thin, white lacerations so many that Nott can hardly begin to count them all, she wouldn’t even know where to begin.

She watches in silence as the wizard peels away his undershirt and turns to begin digging through his travel pack. In the low candlelight their room is an abyss of interlocking shadows, the flame of the candle throws such an angry, harsh angle over the man that his wounds seem all the more harrowing. Nott ducks her head and clasps her hands together in her lap, squeezes them tightly and tries to gather her thoughts.

She cares about Caleb very dearly and the thought of someone hurting him makes her chest drop like led.

“Who did that to you, Caleb?” She asks slowly, staring out at him from behind the confines of her hood. Her mask has been set aside and her voice rings clear like a bell in the silent room. She watches a little guilty as his shoulder pull tense, making the deformed mass of scars shimmer in the candlelight like bastard constellations. Eventually he continues his movements and pulls a new (not clean, but less matted) shirt over his head and hides away the wounds.

“No one has done anything to me, do not worry.” Caleb tells her, his voice very low and she wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to whisper because it’s just the two of them and their room is really quite big for a Man and a Goblin, but Caleb looks a little vacant and she does not want to upset him. Sometimes he gets sad when she points out his weird human things like staring at nothing for too long or screaming in his sleep so she just leaves him and his strange cultural differences alone.

Maybe it’s a magic thing, she reassures herself even though she does not quite believe it.

“Scars don’t just show up.” Nott says, perhaps a little too petulant because Caleb barks a laugh that doesn’t quite make his eyes crease with mirth.

“Surprisingly, these ones did. No one did them to me Nott, and they don’t hurt for long. I’m fine, very fine.” Caleb says, his voice thick with something almost tangible but Nott cannot name it, instead she nods her head at Caleb and they return to their companionable silence.

There is a lot that they have not told each other.

Nott mentally notes down peculiar magic scarring to the expansive list that is to be her synopsis on one Caleb Widogast, right below his fondness of haddock.

  
\-----

“Do you, Goblins I mean, have soulmates?” Caleb asks abruptly, so suddenly and with such a quiet rush of air that Nott does not respond.

Caleb sighs, staring at the ceiling of their rented room in the crude little respite Inn bordering the marshy hills that herald herding lands. Nott and he have been travelling for upwards of six months now and he is almost certain that she can read Caleb like a unfastened scroll, which is a little humorous because he surmised that she was very nearly illiterate prior to their meeting and subsequent lessons. She knew what she needed to and with a bitter little laugh Caleb realises that that basically summarises their entire union.

They know what they need to and suddenly Caleb is overwhelmed with the urge to extend a little something more. It may be the ale talking, it is definitely the ale talking, but he feels almost smothered by this secret and before he could really bite down his traitorous tongue he had spoken.

But Nott has yet to reply and with a weary sigh he realises that she is likely asleep, why he had just been rudely awoken himself not moments before by a piercing slice that tore across his clavicle like a whip. His hands tremble with the shock of the cut and he folds them together across his stomach, works to steady his breathing and ignores the frigid chill settling deep in his bones, making him all jittery. Caleb is well accustomed to the burning cold that comes with his fear but he is no less pleased by its biting arrival.

Maybe he could wake Nott or read a book or knock himself out with the weighted water basin; in these moments he would gladly do anything to distract himself from his anxiety.

“We do.” Nott whispers into the darkness, her voice cracking tiredly, a little groggy. Caleb jolts at the sudden noise and blinks towards the space he knows her to occupy at the foot of the bed. Her eyes are like ghastly beacons as she stares towards him, and in the shadows he can make out her minor squint of confusion.

“That’s good.” Caleb mutters, unable to hold her gaze and instead dropping his head back against his sodden pillow to stare up at the web laden ceiling. He feels more than hears her shuffle about in the blankets and he is not surprised to feel her foot press reassuringly against his leg.

“They are not really that important but soulmates make better breeding pairs, they say that their spawn make for stronger fighters.” She yawns around her words but Caleb understands her meaning. He nods his head although she cannot see him and he makes an aborted sound of acknowledgement.

“What about anything stronger?” Caleb prompts, closing his eyes and working to steady his breathing, be easy, he thinks.

“You mean as in soulbonds? Sure, they’re pretty rare but we have the ones where some folk are born with matching runes that change colours, people say they’re telepathic but I could never tell if they were serious or just taking the piss.” She says and Caleb snorts.

“That’s a rumour, the telepathy.” He murmurs although it would be so incredibly useful if it were not, how easily his problems could be solved if he could have thought angrily at his partner.

‘Hey motherfucker, that hurts, stop it.’ He would think, and everything would be perfect again.

“Anything else?” He says then, and lays still as Nott grumbles to herself in thought.

“We used to have matepairs in the pits, the guardians. One of ‘em used to actually fight in the arena and her mate would take all of the damage, she would still get the wounds but she said she wouldn’t feel them at all, just like a little fuzzy bit of water running off her skin.” Nott says in unabashed awe and Caleb can almost picture the striking image of some glorious Goblin warrior, bitten into with swords and daggers and brushing them away like so much dust.

“Her mate was bad though, used to sit and watch and she would bleed and cry and it was like she was being torn apart by ghosts, pieces of her would just fall away, you know?” Nott asks and Caleb chokes out his agreement.

“I do know.” Caleb whispers and Nott falls so incredibly silent that Caleb is almost deafened by his own raspy breathing.

The thin sheet provided to them whispers together as Nott moves, crawling up the bed with her gangling limbs and awkward, spindly hands. She flops down besides him with a heavy, tired sigh and without a word she pries free one of Caleb’s hands, clutching it tightly between her own and she curls around it almost protectively. Caleb squeezes her fingers tight.

“When we find your soulmate I’m going to kill them dead.” She says and Caleb chokes on his tongue.

“Please do not.” He pleads and Nott grumbles something that is definitely not an agreement.

When they wake up in the morning, Nott still clutching his hand like a lifeline, they do not speak about it but Caleb feels lighter.

\-----

Finally the Nergaliid lays dead, the bulbous head bisected harshly from the stout, blubbery neck. Caleb feels that he can breathe for the first time in days, his muscles ache and an angry mantra is drumming against his temple. His chest feels as if he has been speared and he does not have to peel his cloaks away to know that he is damp with blood, that a cavernous wound has formed in his sternum beneath his untarnished clothes, a wound that no amount of healing will banish for it is not his own. A wound that is something harmless and horrendously painful. 

He gathers Nott close to his side, resting a hand atop her shrouded mantle and leaning on her. His head feels clouded with incense smoke and his breathing rattles, damp and weary; he needs to rest and to drink, he thinks desperately. He wants to go home, wherever that may be.

Too much seems to be happening at once, Beauregard and Fjord are bowed together in conversation, Jester is rooting through the mutilated remains of the beast with a quiet resolve and frown pulling her face, Mollymauk has silently cradled Toya into his arms and pets her hair with soothing little ministrations.

Caleb watches him and feels bile burn his throat, through the multitude of layers the man is encased in he can spy the magically healed puncture, a bastard mirror to the bleeding mess on Caleb’s own chest. Mollymauk glances at him, eyes expressionless and terribly soft and Caleb ducks his head away, staring pointedly at the ground as he works to breathe.

This cannot be happening. He thinks bitterly, ignoring the feint trickle of blood that follows the curl of his nape from the thin cut that burst across his skin as Mollymauk had activated one of his accursed swords. He had held his suspicions, after their encounter in the Circus, but he had hoped it was some unfortunate coincidence. There is no out thinking the puncture in his chest now however and Caleb feels hollow. 

Each breath he takes is shuddering and painful, his heart floats all of a sudden displaced, like he needs to vomit until there is nothing left at all. Everything is wrong and woozy and Caleb flinches as the familiar talons of panic bite fiercely into his flesh.

“Now surely Jester’s healing did not leave you so nauseous?” Mollymauk speaks, cradling the young girl like a doll in one of his arms and resting the other on the small of her back.

“Not at all, I am just exhausted.” Caleb grouses, staring at their boots in the dirt, splatters of crimson tarnish the treated leather boots Mollymauk wears, and Caleb swallows against a strange giddiness that claws at his throat. Some primordial energy is burning his nerves until all that he can feel is ecstatic. 

“Caleb, look at me.” Mollymauk says, rather sternly and beneath his palm Caleb can feel Nott bristle. He drags his gaze upwards, stares at Mollymauk’s gilded horns and watches the way the various glittering trinkets knock together and glimmer in the silvery moonlight.

“Are you alright, too?” Caleb asks abruptly, knowing that he has likely interrupted some righteous lecture about self-maintenance or honesty.

“I’m quite fantastic, really, not only has Jester done an incredible job in forcing my skin back together but I have a pretty remarkable pain tolerance on top of that anyway.” Mollymauk says and Caleb feels an angry, hollow thing root itself in his chest.

Part of him wants to sob and another wants to press his forehead to Mollymauk’s shoulder, to feel the warmth and curious comfort there, he decides that his mantle must be silken to the touch. But they are strangers and Caleb is just a convenience so he stays firmly rooted in place. A rather remarkable pain tolerance in the form of a man. 

“That is interesting.” He hums his agreements and turns to seem like he is examining the ruins while this unfamiliar world crumbles like ashes and dust beneath his boots.

Caleb has met his soulmate and he does not know what to do. In his books the bond would just click into place like a gear finding their home in the intricate machine of the universe but this is not like his books, this is harrowing and complicated and terrifying. Caleb is bloodied and light headed and Mollymauk does not seem to acknowledge the strange giddiness at all. 

So much can go wrong here, Caleb realises with a shudder, and Mollymauk is just a stranger.

Nott reaches out and clasps his hand tight and Caleb swallows around the ashes on his tongue.

“We’re okay.” She says and Caleb is not so sure that he is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd honestly like to thank every single person who has read, kudos'd and especially commented. I know I haven't responded but I want you all to know that I read and reread what you say and then probably also cry because you're all so sweet! <3
> 
> also, pacing? I don't know her.

Weeks trickle by almost as an afterthought, leaving Caleb nauseous and jaded. Their group is chaotic in their union and Caleb feels that if he were to stop he would never catch up with them again, and some tormented part of him likes the security of a group for once, being able to sleep through the night knowing that someone else is watching. Despite the comfort it is still exhausting, he can feel a tear working a groove into the sole of his boot, snagged from a corpse and two sizes too big, and he is desperate for a good night's sleep. He feels as if he is just a witness to the world around him, that he has no real presence anymore. Although it is not intentional he feels shadowed by the Goliath personalities of his companions, and the attention they receive does not pass him unnoticed. He is with them but as if a phantom and Caleb has found that living as a spectre to his friends is an incredibly safe way to get by. No one can harm him if they are not even aware of his existence.

Vagrancy suits them well and eventually they find themselves in the crooked hills just a few days North of Kamordah. A scattered swarm of buildings encompass the hills like bastions in fine fettle, many of them bow together in the low valleys where the residents are acquainted and kind. Even more still branch off of these swarms of life and farmsteads crop up in the roving hills many miles apart, there is a distance here but it is all Kamordah. Many of the buildings are stone, gilded with wrought iron and polished to a shine to ward away the frost of the high altitudes and the stark grey melds with the barren hillsides in their winter drear.

The Mighty Nein find themselves laden with thick winter furs and treated leathers to ward off the frost. Nott’s knitted cap can be pulled down to encompass her entire head and the band of travellers have made a sport of who can do it in the most inconvenient circumstance.

Currently Beauregard is winning, having pulled it over her head during the night when Nott fell asleep on their watch shift and then convincing the girl that she must have gone blind. Caleb did not appreciate being woken so suddenly by the screaming at the time but he has learned to appreciate the humour behind it.

Caleb has somehow, likely by the grace of some benign God, managed to keep his little soulbond under heavy wraps. He resolutely avoids being touched in battle and then when Mollymauk is wounded he will stow himself away and stitch himself back together like his bastard, beaten overcoat. He does not make for a pretty sight, but he is functional and miraculously in one piece and so Caleb is content for now. It is almost a convenience, now that they are close, he can intervene and stop Mollymauk from doing something incredibly stupid.

Finally, after years of being held at the mercy of phantom blades, he can defend himself. It feels surprisingly nice, to be in control again. The wounds do not stop and their pain is still as terrible as ever but without the abstract terror of the unknown infliction it is easier to get by. There is no more horrified prodding at his wounds, trying to puzzle out what sort of beast has a fang that can pierce a rib cage, because now Caleb is well acquainted with the monsters that slice him apart, it is just a terrible shame that it is usually Mollymauk himself.

No amount of conditioning or preparation can stop him from flinching when Mollymauk activates one of his infernal blades. The burn is deep and terrible and Caleb just does not understand it, he cannot bring himself to ask anyone about it less he risk suspicion and he is so unfamiliar with this type of arcane that he cannot even begin to wrap his head around it. Deep down he knows that the piercing wounds are only fleeting and though they hurt savagely their damage is only phantom, they can’t really kill him even though on some days he feels that they just might. On occasion Mollymauk will slice his neck just so, in a way that leaves Caleb disorientated and ebbed with sudden cold, a lot like a shroud of death, he thinks, but it is a passing moment and he has yet to actually die from it.

Mollymauk is reckless and wild in his combat, if Caleb was to die from his injuries he would be long since in his shallow tomb.

(So it is easier to believe. Rather that than to dwell on the very terrifying possibility that one day Mollymauk may just be the death of him.)

Sometimes, on strange, tranquil days where the Nein can share a drink and a story and a smile as if they are familiar Caleb considers telling Mollymauk, showing him their matching scars and then folding into his touch like a hound desperate for praise. Mollymauk has a searching hand that leaves Caleb pleasantly warm and humming with energy when it prods him in passing, a familiar pat on the cheek can leave him feeling flushed for hours. He wonders when he fell in love with Molly, whether it was through the rush of desperate hormones telling him that his touch was so incredibly right or whether it would have happened anyway, whether Mollymauk’s wit and charm and foreign, terrifying eyes would still have had the same allure.

He wonders if Mollymauk can feel it too.

Technically the man should feel something, but he treats Caleb as if he were any other member of their group, he is righteous and firm and friendly and nothing more.

It leaves Caleb a little hollow, sometimes, watching when Mollymauk will share a soft touch with Yasha or a familiar jibe with Fjord.

He is all too familiar with the burn that jealousy leaves in his chest, but it doesn’t make the ache any less there.

Three times he has almost told the man, and thinking about it shakes him with a jolt of fear. The first time they had been a group for nigh on a fortnight, Caleb had been bloodied and pallid and reeking of rotten Gnoll entrails. His body was shaking and his skin was bleeding for Molly and the man had touched him, had brushed his forehead with a kiss and Caleb almost said it, just to call him back, because Mollymauk makes him feel so entirely secure in a way he has never felt before. The second time they were on watch together, and the flame cast such a radiant, ethereal plume of colour across the man’s features that Caleb found himself short for breath, Mollymauk is terrible and handsome and Caleb is in love with the single dimple that dips in his left cheek when someone says something crass. The third and last time Caleb almost gave himself away was five nights ago, they had found themselves a wayward tavern with decent food and amiable drink and Caleb had lost himself in his ale, had chased some sort of satisfaction in the brew that left him restless and aching. He had decided that if he let Mollymauk know that maybe the man would pin him to the hardwood wall of their room and fuck him until nothing hurt anymore. Instead Caleb had sputtered out an incoherent string of words and Mollymauk had sent him to bed with soft eyes and a gentle touch to his shoulder that left Caleb reeling and tender.

It is wiser not to let him know, anyway.

Despite the perils that they have faced Caleb does not trust any of the Nein more than a vague acknowledgement that they won’t turn him into the guard, probably, hopefully. With this comes the acceptance that Mollymauk is still a mantle of lies and deceit with a pretty face and gilded tattoos. He has been mutilating himself for years now and who is to say that he won’t manipulate Caleb into some fancy, breathing shield if he were to know the truth?

No, it is safer to stay quiet, even if it makes his heart hurt.

“Caleb, Caleb, Caleb.” Jester whines, a mantra of words that becomes louder with each passing moment, she reaches out her hand and flicks Caleb’s forehead a little roughly.

“Hello Jester.” He says, blinking at her. She is kneeling next to him on their burlap travel fabric, keeping them comfortably away from the snow laden grounds, her blue cheeks are darkened with the cold and her face is almost radiant with her smile.

“You went a little distant, I decided to check on you, but here you are. That’s good.” She says to him, sitting close enough that she may as well crawl fully into his lap. Maybe being so touchy is a Tiefling thing, Caleb thinks. He struggles enough trying to conform to most social settings and he does not even want to begin to consider learning the array of new quirks that come with Tieflings and Half Orcs and whatever peculiar social class Beauregard pretends she is not part of.

“I promise not to tell the others that you just got tried.” Caleb faux whispers, glancing up to look across the snow laden field they occupy where the rest of the Nein are in the process of pelting each other with snowballs and snowballs that also have rocks in them.

“I did not!” Jester declares and then, behind the fold of her hand and right in Caleb’s ear: “I just dumped so much snow on Fjord, he’s probably super dead right now.”

Caleb barks a laugh and Jester tucks her head against his shoulder, chuckling into the confines of his coat.

He finds that he likes these people in a familiar sort of way, enough that he can sleep through the night with them by his side, enough that he can take these strange comforts from them. They are almost a family, an estranged, disgusting family. Nott enjoys these people, and Caleb enjoys these people and they do not treat he and Nott so poorly. It will make leaving them so much harder when the time comes.

After the tremors of fear and pain faded following their encounter with the Circus, Caleb was faced with a realisation that turned his stomach to led. Leaving these people is going to prove difficult, a few days of sharing a tavern and suddenly they were all so very ensnared. Leaving Mollymauk will hurt, too, he thinks. Although part of him is resolutely bitter at the thought, it’s not fair that he has to be hurt again just to carry on with his life. At the same time he does not want to be stuck to someone like a bauble but leaving is equally as terrifying. This is it after all, this is what the universe has to bestow upon him, there is nothing else waiting out there for him.

Now that is a terrifying concept.

Swallowing back his boding worry and without considering why, he reaches out and grabs a handful of the frigid snow, ignores how it soaks his cotton gloves and instead focuses on smearing the biting ice directly across Jester’s face. She shrieks and shoves him away, her laughter ringing like feint silver bells and Caleb feels so strangely happy.

Jester stands and backs away from him, her hands held placidly ahead of her in the universal sign of surrender. He is almost smiling, he can feel it pull at the corners of his lips like a boding beast, instead he stands slowly, staring at Jester who laughs and bows to gather her own snow in a flurry.

Distantly he is aware of the burn of the ice and the encroaching numbness of his fingers but the warmth in his chest is enough for right now. Until suddenly he is hit with a blast of cold, right in the back of his neck, then down his back as the snow slides beneath his shirts.

He turns, almost losing his footing on the ice, and glares at Mollymauk, who has a few stray flakes of snow still clinging to his fingers and a smile so wicked Caleb is nearly certain that it was crafted by a demon. He stares at that terrible, perfect smile and blinks slowly, holding the man’s pupil-less gaze for what feels like an eternity of empty, infernal red.

“I wasn’t aware that you were part of the fight Caleb, this is very interesting.” He says and it sounds like a warning,

“I’m not.” He croaks just as Jester shrieks a laugh behind him. He is only distantly aware of the impact of a snowball against his shoulder and he stares just to the side of Mollymauk’s head, enough to distinguish his pinched expression in his peripheral. His eyes are narrowed into slits and Caleb very pointedly does not look at him.

“I am going over here now.” He says lowly, pointing vaguely towards the sentinel figure of Yasha across the field. He notes the impression of Nott building a snow mound amidst the glistening white and can see Fjord working valiantly to shape it into anything at all. His hair is damp and a few white flakes cling to him still.

“Oh-hoh, Molly you scared him off!” Jester whines and the inflection of laughter rings clear in her voice.

Caleb does not catch the reply because he is already walking away but the tone is low and not meant for him to hear anyway.

The field is not particularly large but it is bordered by a low stone wall that crumbles into ruined grey slabs, likely a field for sheep when the winter is not so cruel. In the distance he can make out a solitary farmstead nestled into the hillside like a vagrant and he squints against the blinding whiteness to look at it.

“They’re isolated.” Yasha says as he falls in by her side and he makes a small noise of agreement. Her back is tense and firm as if she is held up by nothing but the straightness of her sword and her eyes narrow as she looks down at the farmlands, a few flecks of snow vanish against her pallid skin and Caleb shivers at the harrowing sight of her, almost as if a phantom.

“There is fire.” He points out and sure enough a wispy trail of smoke is puffing from the building's cobbled together chimney and it dissipates, vanishing into the cloudless, grey skies.

In the crooked little Inn that bordered these decrepit hills The Mighty Nein had been propositioned to put a stop to a roving group of foul bandits that were terrorising the dwellers. It had been simple enough to accept, especially with a large coin purse as their incentive, but down in the craggy valleys it was proving difficult to even find the brigade let alone stop them.

“I bet that they have some decent food.” Beau says suddenly, appearing at Yasha’s side with a ruddy face and a pleased smile. Yasha looks at her and Beau looks back and there is something palpable there that makes Caleb feel sour.

“We cannot go there and demand food.” Caleb mutters, tucking his arms into his coat and brushing his fingers against the worn fabric in comforting little motions.

“Yeah, no, but we can go there and ask for food as payment for our bandit chasing.” She says and Caleb rolls his eyes.

“Despite the fact that we have not chased any bandits yet.” He bites out and then, in a lower tone, “We have done nothing at all for these people.”

“They don’t know that!” Beau argues with a hiss and a puff of frost forming ahead of her.

“What are we talking about?” Mollymauk asks dangerously close to Caleb’s ear and he flinches at the sound. He turns to find the man sidling up to him in his ridiculous fur-lined cloak with an almost maroon flush darkening his face. He’s looking at Caleb strangely, a languid drag of his eyes across Caleb’s face and body before he looks to Yasha almost in dismissal.

Caleb doesn’t know what to do with the wounded feeling in his chest so he balls his hands into fists.

“Beauregard wants to visit the farm.” Yasha says and Mollymauk breaks into a smile.

“That sounds great, I’m sure that they’ll have some information on the goings on in these hills.” Mollymauk says and Beau makes a low, abrasive noise, as if she wants to disagree but swallows back some awful statement. Her face twists sourly.

“Hey, who is doing what now?” Fjord asks as he approaches them, the ground crinkles beneath his heavy tread and Jester falls in line behind him, Nott tucked to her side like a distorted shadow.

“We’re going there-” Beauregard stretches out her muscled arm to point out the building and she grins savagely when he nods, “to get some food and some information.”

“I bet they have mutton.” Nott squeaks, balancing precariously on her hooked, talon-tipped toes to peer over the knobbly rock wall.

“Holy shit I bet that they absolutely do.” Beau says lowly, too brash to be classified as anything other than poorly masqueraded excitement.

\-----

The Mallards do not have any mutton but they have preserved figs and herb flatbread that settles heavily on Caleb’s stomach.

For being so isolated the building is remarkably homely, a large crackling hearth works on devouring logs of oak and birch, spooling plumes of heady smoke up into the chimney while a wheezy little brass kettle bubbles away on the iron stove. Furs and woollen blankets are cast across the floors to trap the warmth and a beady eyed deer head watches the company from where it is mounted above the hearth.

Ms. Mallard is a stooped old woman with a shock of grey hair pulled into a tight bun at the base of her skull. She looked across their troop with a thin lipped smile that quickly gave way to a cheery resolve as she welcomed them into her home. She is a mother who has children no longer and Caleb spots a few carved toys, aged and dusty, sitting on the clustered shelves. He counts lines of proud imperial soldiers with their paints peeling into torrents at their feet as he sits heavily onto the padded flooring, his knees ache at the relief and he works on rubbing soothing circles against the tempered joints.

He does not make a move when Nott hides away a carved horse in her travel satchel. He does not want to cause a stir and risk upsetting their host when he can already feel his toes beginning to thaw in his sodden boots. The common area is small and roasting hot, enough that Mollymauk has shrugged out of his furs and Caleb watches how the luminous inks glisten against his skin. In the thick haze of the room it is almost as if the blackness of the snake writhes against his arm. Caleb can distantly recall a day in his youth where he felt ill from an aching burn that started at his palm and enveloped his arm in a searing blaze, at the time he was convinced that it was the aftermath of overexposure and sunstroke in some unholy tandem and he had spent the day bedridden and miserable. But now he watches how the layers of coloured inks blend together against Mollymauk's dark skin and he cannot hate the man for it.

He quite likes the tattoos, truthfully.

Beauregard and Yasha have left with the old man Mr. Mellard, who speaks with a gap-toothed lisp but compensates for it with gaudy humour, to help him lock away his goats. In their absence Jester has folded herself onto the low set satin fainting couch, allowing Fjord a sliver of space at the edge where he has perched himself almost uncomfortably.

“Say, Nott.” Mollymauk speaks abruptly, startling Caleb from his thoughts. He looks over to find the man folded comfortably on the floor, arms crossed about his leg and watching Nott as she in turn watches the trinket lined shelves. There is never any harm in just looking and there is absolutely no harm in not being caught.

“Yes?” She squeaks, voice a startled squawk and Caleb scowls.

“Come here for a moment.” He beckons with a crook of his finger and he stands with a peculiar feline grace. He gestures to an unremarkable hallway, leading into the deeper bowels of the home. They slip into the space which is divided by a door that groans when you close it. Nott flounders for a moment before following and Caleb glares at their retreating forms until the door is closed tight and so he glares at the scratched paint instead.

“You look something foul, Caleb.” Fjord says and Caleb shifts his gaze to stare at the fire once more.

“We are manipulating these people.” He says although he does not find that it bothers him. Rather he does not like that Mollymauk is hosting private discussions with Nott suddenly, he worries about a plethora of things that could never reasonably happen. Their statistical improbability of never happening does not make him worry any less.

“I don’t reckon that we are. They’re being humble and we’re doin’ them a service in the end.” Fjord says softly so that their host does not overhear them from where she works in her kitchen.

“I suppose that this is true.” Caleb sighs, jaw pinched with worry. What are they talking about in there?

They sit in a companionable silence of sorts, the only constant being the tepid huff of Jester’s breathing and the rising shriek of the kettle from the stove. This hub of noise is almost tranquil until the door creaks open and Nott sticks her head out, peering into the room. Her face is tilted down to bury in the shroud of her scarf and Caleb narrows his eyes at her.

She does not speak to him and Caleb stands abruptly, ignoring the aching protest of his knees, and brushes passed her into the dingy little corridor. The air is cold outside of the hearth-room and it nips at Caleb’s skin angrily. Mollymauk is still lounging against one of the wooden walls and his lips pull upwards marginally at the sight of Caleb.

A large paned window throws a cascade of bleak, silver light into the hall, it glistens and highlights the beige wooden cladding. They are surprisingly barren walls other than where they are adorned with a few crooked paintings of unfamiliar monarchs, only one of them is well enough maintained and the acrylic bust of a young crowned woman watches them almost wearily from her canvas.

Mollymauk is leaning between two of these canvases, almost framed by their presence. He’s a graceful, compelling kind of calculated as he roves his eyes over Caleb, his fangs breach the confines of his mouth as he smiles.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He greets and Caleb kicks closed the door behind him with a groaning wail as the hinges protest.

“Just now, what were you and Nott discussing?” He asks, eyes narrowing on one of Mollymauk’s horns, near enough to feign eye contact.

“Now that seems like a serious breach of privacy there Caleb, why would you like to know?” Mollymauk chuckles harsh and warm, the kind of enveloping sound that Caleb could listen to forever.

Now there is a dangerous thought, listening to Mollymauk forever, Caleb isn’t the kind of man who gets to have a forever. Forever is an awfully long time for things to go wrong.

“Okay then.” He says bluntly and turns to leave. He already regrets confronting the man, while he does not mind the group viewing him as nothing more than an overbearing matron to Nott he should work to avoid trapping himself with Mollymauk less he lose his mind and say something irrevocable and stupid.

Caleb does not have time to be stupid.

His boot scarcely leaves the floor before Mollymauk’s arm lashes out and blocks his exit, pressing to the wall beside his head, stern but not unkind and with just enough presence to effectively crowd him in. Mollymauk closes the space between them, a trifle few inches between their chests and the warmth is almost encompassing, the smell of iron and citrus and the pungent oils of his swords. Caleb swallows around his suddenly too dry throat and stares at the silver hoop in the man’s ear.

Caleb flickers his gaze quickly over Mollymauk, his face is close and cold bitten, angry little bruised marks are stark on his cheeks and his eyes are void and intense, twin pools of scrutinising crimson. Caleb shivers and Mollymauk’s too close lips dip into a frown, the lower lip is flushed and bitten and Caleb manages to drag his eyes away before he does something he could regret.

“She stole one of the woman’s carvings, I told her to put it back.” Mollymauk whispers, voice low enough that Caleb is certain he would not have heard him if they were not pressed so close together.

“Oh.” Caleb says softly, blinking and then again, in a far smaller whisper of his own: “That is good. Thank you.”

Part of him, something defensive and crass, wants to be angry about that, because who is Mollymauk to be telling Nott what to do? Another part of him however is far too keen on trying to name the sulphuric smell clinging to Mollymauk’s person. Deep down he is puzzling out why he likes it so much.

Now that it has been said he is not entirely sure what he had expected. Nott, as clever and suspicious as she is, does not know who Caleb’s soulmate is and if she does she has not yet confronted him about it. She has no reason to tell Mollymauk anything at all.

“How did you manage to convince her?” Caleb asks abruptly and really it is a curiosity, often Nott is reluctant to let go of any of her prizes, let alone something of decent quality.

“I promised that I would buy her a new one, when we reach a city.” Mollymauk shrugs and Caleb is rendered silent by the selfless confession. Of course Mollymauk would have offered some overtly fair compromise, things would not be so difficult if he were just some extravagant dickhead like Caleb had imagined his soulmate to be. Instead Mollymauk has to be kind and generous and handsome and Caleb hates him for it.

“You do not have to, I can do it.” Caleb murmurs, certain that he can dip into his savings and buy Nott something simple for once. Until recently he had rarely enough coin to keep them fed and clothed let alone enough to pay for niceties and now that his coin purse has a little weight to it he realises that he has a lot to make up for.

“But I want to.” Mollymauk says, bowing his head to force Caleb to meet his eye. Caleb’s pulse spikes against his neck. He is all of a sudden too warm and too close.

“Save your money.” Caleb insists, leaning so firmly against the wall that the overlapping boards are beginning to bite angry impressions into his back.

“I have more money than a man could ever need and it is just a child’s toy, by the Gods, Caleb.” Mollymauk’s voice is tempered and determined with an inflection of a challenge interwoven with his words, daring Caleb to retort.

Confrontation is a dangerous thing and Caleb is want to avoid it. If you are to risk engaging someone at all it needs to be with the assurance that you are entirely in the right before you even open your mouth. It is a simple thing to live by and it has spared Caleb many situations that would have left him a corpse. Now Caleb is thinking on it, he is looking at Mollymauk and his devil's tongue as it trails across his lower lip and he knows that he has never been one for using intricate words to jibe and to tear apart another's resolve. Mollymauk is not at all in the wrong and Caleb cannot think of a way to argue against that without seeming petulant or crazed. So he does the only rational thing he can consider: he escapes.

He squares his shoulders and he ducks beneath Mollymauk’s arm and walks away, feeling an intense flush of embarrassment burn at him when Mollymauk says nothing at all.

The door announces his entrance with a wail that draws the eyes of everyone in the room which is occupied by, well, everyone. A wicked smirk pulls Beauregard’s face into something scheming and Caleb must look quite the sight, appearing from a quaint nook with a flushed face and Mollymauk looming behind.

“Did you have a nice conversation, Caleb?” Nott asks and Caleb signs marginally, very pointedly not meeting Beau’s grinning face. The woman is still lined with a frigid coat of snow and her hands are blue and purple at the knuckles.

“Oh we had a delightful conversation, didn’t we now Caleb? My favourite part was when you-” Mollymauk starts, voice an octave higher as he struggles to bite back his jovial laughter. His undoubtedly crass tale is cut short by Fjord clearing his throat and then nodding pointedly to their hosts, who look a mixture of terrified and reluctantly bemused.

“Of course, sorry.” Mollymauk says to Fjord and then, regaining his bravado, “You have a lovely corridor, I adore the rug.”

Ms. Mallard makes a vague noise of joy in her throat and Caleb is left to blink at his boots; he had not even noticed that there was a carpet at all.

“I made it myself.” She tells them, delighted.

“Of course you did!” Mollymauk laughs, eagerly clapping his hands as if genuinely impressed. He probably is, knowing how keen he is to be pleased.

“Well, I think it would be best if we follow up on that lead in the valley.” Beauregard announces, shrugging her heavy cloak on and buckling it tight. Yasha does not move other than to nod in agreement and the old man smiles a little tenderly at them.

“Mr. Mallard reckons that the bandits are holed up in the cave system down in the valley.” Fjord says to Caleb, gesturing to the man in question and Caleb sighs a little wearily.

“Do you guys ever notice how it’s always caves?” Jester whines, bundling up her belongings with a drawn out groan. “Just once I want to find some bandits who are hiding out in a chateaux.”

“With a pool.” Mollymauk agrees and they both sigh in an eerily synchronised manner.

Nott cringes at Caleb as if she does not speak the language and Caleb shrugs a little helplessly back at her.

As they bid their farewells and traverse back into the unrelenting storm Caleb spies the tiny carved horse returned to the shelf.

\-----

Several hours of travelling finds them buried deep in the desolate snow laden hills with no general understanding of their whereabouts other than they’re likely still in the correct region. A large sloping overhang shrouds the mouth of a stone path that begins to dip and twist serpentine down into some concealed valley. Tall stone inclines tower around the road like battlements and it is under this grassy overhang where they make their camp for the evening.

Fjord sets out their travel rolls in a companionable circle around the barren mound of dried sticks and nature’s debris which Caleb sets aflame with a resounding click of his fingers.

Yasha and Beauregard take the first watch of the evening and disappear into the stark grey evening with a lantern and a flask of something acidic between them.

“Does anyone remember if that deer had eyebrows?” Jester asks, frowning at her sketchbook where it sits bundled on her lap.

“I don’t think that it did.” Nott says after a moment of genuine thought. She is already half asleep against Caleb’s side and on most nights he would tuck her away when she reaches her wilting stage of tiredness but right now he is freezing and is absolutely leeching her warmth.

“I’m going to give him eyebrows as a form of artistic liberty.” Jester murmurs, brandishing her stick of charcoal with a new form of resolve. Fjord snorts and then clears his throat to feign that he did not.

“It was a girl deer.” Nott pipes up, voice wavering around a yawn.

“How would you know?” Jester asks and the pink curl of her tongue is poking out of her mouth in serious concentration.

“It didn't have any antlers. Only male deer have antlers.” Nott says in minor defence and Caleb nods dismissively in agreement.

“They could have cut them off.” Jester retorts, not turning away from her parchment.

“Why would they cut them off?” Mollymauk asks suddenly and when Caleb risks a glance in his direction the man’s face is pinched with confusion.

“To make room for him in the house. They cut his body off too, Mollymauk, I don't think that they'd care about his horns.” Jester says as if it were obvious and Caleb is genuinely concerned, unable to tell if she is serious or just incredible at absolutely rinsing people. Caleb knows that it is far better to be underestimated and ignorance is so easy to feign when everyone else imagines that they’re the brightest spark in the room. He considers the shrouded game of deceit between them and wonders, not for the first time, whether Jester is partaking.

Caleb lowers his gaze to continue reading one of his newer scrolls, a battered old thing with a few runes he does not know scrawled crudely in the margins. From where their rolls are lain he can make out the shape of Mollymauk opposite him, staring absently into the flames, every other moment his tail twitches almost irritably and without warning he raises his hand and dances his fingers in the roaring flames.

Almost immediately Caleb feels the biting heat against the pads of his fingers and he swallows back a hiss of pain. His eyes quickly grow damp at the burn and without any reasonable thought he snarls:

“Stop that.”

Everyone looks at him at once and Caleb stares solidly at Mollymauk who doesn’t even have the decency to move his hand. The scroll shakes in his grasp and Mollymauk laughs in a hollow, disbelieving way.

“I’m not doing anything.” Mollymauk growls and Caleb grumbles low in his throat as the burn reaches his wrist with a white-hot pang.

“Your hand.” He says harshly, breathing a little too unevenly as the pain begins to fog his mind.

“I’m not stopping anything because of your complex.” Mollymauk snaps and Jester and Fjord share a twin look of someone who very much does not want to be in the situation that they are.

“Fine.” Caleb snaps, folding the parchment with two furious creases that likely distorts the line work before stuffing it thoughtlessly into his pocket - no one speaks as he does.

Caleb stands abruptly, leaving Nott to topple helplessly for a few moments until she catches herself and stands with him. The snow crunches beneath her step as she follows him out of sight of the camp up onto the overhang above where he quickly kneels and peels his glove off. It takes him a few attempts to really get it unfastened as his hands are trembling madly and the pain is sore and fresh.

It is difficult to make out in the pallid blue moonlight but the reflection of the snow is bright and dewy and Caleb can see where his fingertips have turned red and white. The very tip of his index finger is almost damp in the grotesque way skin turns when it begins to melt like wax. His hand is still shaking with painful little jitters so he clutches his wrist and buries the burning appendage deep into the snow.

The sting subsides as his arm turns gradually numb and while the snow soaks his knees he is aware of Nott watching him silently.

He refuses to meet her gaze, ducking his head and closing his eyes tightly against the onslaught of embarrassment and pain. He flinches when she touches his shoulder, a gentle probe that quickly turns into an enveloping hug. Her arms do not quiet make the distance around his shoulders but she is straining to pull him close to her chest.

“Does he know?” Nott asks quietly, a hushed whisper against the crown of his head.

“No, no.” Caleb shakes his head and heaves a sigh as the frigid snow numbs his arm.

“Maybe he should know-” Nott suggests tenderly, her voice is soft and even and she is evidently struggling to think of a way to approach the situation.

“No.” Caleb almost jolts at the words and he pulls out of her grasp so that he can look her in the eye, tone serious. “He cannot know.”

“But Caleb if he knew he wouldn’t do those things because it would hurt you. It would make things better!” Nott argues and her voice breaks roughly on the words, she raises a hand almost in surprise to touch her throat and in the silence between them she sniffs.

“I know Nott but this is not like your stories. Yes if he knew he might stop but then he might not, too.” Caleb is kneeling now and the snow is soaking through his clothes and making him shake with cold.

“He wouldn’t use you-” She squeaks just as Caleb sets his free hand on her shoulder and squeezes tight.

“He might.” Caleb says very sternly, the words a heavy exhale of air that terrifies him. ” I have the potential to grow a very powerful portfolio of magics and a lot of people, even seemingly good people, would use that magic to do bad things.”

“If he turns out bad we can just leave.” Nott whines, frantic and worried now, her voice trembles almost pathetically and Caleb rests his forehead on hers, closes his eyes and breathes steadily.

Caleb does not ever want to upset her but she needs to understand that she cannot let Mollymauk know. He is also aware that the best way to keep Nott hooked is by reinforcing her exclusivity to his magics.

“How could we leave?” Caleb asks bitterly, swallowing around the dry lump forming in his throat. “Even if we were to vanish and never see him again all he would have to do is to press a blade to his skin.”

“We could kill him.” Nott says firmly and Caleb imagines that his shudder is not entirely from the cold and venom of her voice. “A quick bolt through the head, you probably wouldn’t even feel it.”

Unsurprisingly Caleb hesitates and feels a rising, burning nausea in his chest at the prospect of killing his own soulmate. It is an option of escape to him though, if Mollymauk shows his hand and becomes the terrible, deplorable monster Caleb had conjured in his head. He says nothing but something on his face must show his relent because Nott touches his cheek with her small, cold hand.

“If you ever want him dead you tell me. I don’t need a reason, I don’t need a minute, I just need your word.” She says resolutely, the calculated determination of someone who has done terrible things to survive.

They have all done grievous wrongs for their own lives, what is one more sin in his ledger?  
“Boltstrike.” Caleb whispers, something snappish and not similar enough to the callname of one of their other ploys that it may be confused or misheard.

“Good one.” Nott smiles broadly, a baring of teeth that may very much be considered a threat.

“Alright. If he ever, uhm, pulls some shit, we can kill him.” Caleb nods once and Nott stares silently back at him.

In the burning air of winter it feels almost solemn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! I would once again like to thank everyone who kudos/comments/reads - honestly some of your comments have made me smile on some sucky days, so thank you all so much!
> 
> also if you want to cry about Mollymauk with me I have a tumblr @ereborslionheart 
> 
> this chapter is written to read like God's mistake because that's what it is.

Caleb sits, knee deep in snow and with a blazing ache scorching his hand for what must be the better part of an hour. He does not so much mind the dull throb of the searing frost against his legs because after a while he ends up numb entirely. Nott stands next to him and she warbles in an attempt to keep his attention. They talk about their worst sleeping arrangements ever, rank them on a list that does not make sense, because Caleb is still convinced that the pigsty was worse than the crate on the docks, he just thinks that Nott is still bitter about the clams.

She hates shellfish.

Caleb finally laughs when Nott reminds him of the Coach Incident. He runs a hand through his hair and is not very surprised to pull it away slick with grease.

“I can’t believe that you thought horses worked like that.” Nott has a pitched, wheezing laugh that drowns out Caleb’s own bemused huff.

“They do though! They are supposed to, at least.” Caleb bites back. In his defence the horse was not supposed to be there, he had only wanted to break the coach open for a moderately dry place to sleep. He had not expected the animal to still be hitched and least of all had he expected it to be such a tremendous arsehole about the whole thing.

“I still see that guard’s face in my dreams.” Nott tells him and Caleb groans at the mention, he tries so adamantly just to forget. “I reckon he still tells his family about that, you know, just-”

Nott clears her throat and in a deep, throaty impression that sounds nothing at all like the man, she says:

“Eeyup, one night not nine moons ago I found a horse with a man’s entire arm swallowed right down, like a snake!”

“It was not my entire arm. Just my fingers-” Caleb gripes out defensively, he is entirely certain it was just his knuckles because he still has the slightly puckered scars from when he had panicked and tried to drag his hand free.

“Whatever you say.” Nott relents, smile creasing her face into something fond.

Caleb makes a low, disgusted noise in her vague direction and with a grounding roll of his shoulders he finally pulls his hand free out of the snow. It burns a tad, unresting it from where is had been encompassed and his skin is a pallid mess of purples and blues which is entirely not healthy. He gives it a few shakes in an attempt to encourage the blood to start flowing again and without investigating the skin too closely he tucks it into his pocket. He counts a few stray coins that have fallen free of his purse, two silvers and a few copper. For some reason he has a length of string so he twists it between his numb fingers and pulls it tight until it chafes.

By tomorrow any indication that he was even burned will have faded.

It is a bit of a struggle, picking their way down the steep hillside in the dark. Caleb’s boots snag against intertwined undergrowth that is shrouded by the snows and Nott laughs when he trips onto the sunken pathway, barely catching himself from toppling entirely.

He dreads walking back into the camp. There is something so entirely humiliating about showing weakness, emotional or not, in front of a collection of people. Already he can feel his neck burn with this embarrassment and he glances at Nott a little forlornly, as if she could prevent the onslaught of judgement and pity and staring. They likely think him weak, weaker than they ever had imagined, after his little display and Caleb hates himself for it. If only he had borne the pain and just held his tongue.

That is not the point of this, though. He reminds himself day after day that staying quiet is not the point anymore. Finally he can intervene, he can influence his own pain negation and he will brunt the embarrassment of their pity and judgement if it means avoiding even further injury.

He ducks his head as they wander back into the clearing and he stares very purposefully at the ground.

Their rolls had been lain out earlier in the evening, adjoined and tucked a small distance from the fire pit. Jester and Fjord seem to be settling down, both partly folded into their furs and layers but they are still talking in muted voices, Jester throwing erratic hand movements into their conversation. They do not look at him when he risks a furtive glance, but he feels the burning embarrassment still.

Caleb catches the shape of Mollymauk, kneeling by the flame and working on pouring some steaming, sweet smelling tea from their travel kettle. Caleb toes his boots off and collects them at the base of his roll. In comparison to the rest of the Nein their packs are far more beaten, the treated leathers are torn and stitched roughly with an array of different coloured threads, held together by anything Caleb could get his hands on, silk from fine cloaks, threading from burlap sacks, thread and yarn and twine. They are worn but they are warm and they smell like comfort and the earth, a warm kind of earth that Caleb could bury himself into, like a sun warmed meadow in spring.

It smells like hayfever.

He pulls his overcoat off, waves it out as if that will make any difference to the general wear and tear of it, and he folds it over top their bedding as an added layer of warmth. He unclasps his books as quickly as the harness will allow, although one of the buckles is rusted and wrestles the leather as it gives. He tucks them away between the layers so that he can sleep fully on top of them. To his right Nott has been working through her own evening routines, namely, removing her mask and boots, any knives that are too sharp and may dig into her if she rolls over in sleep, and then burying her toes beneath the blankets. She is sitting upright and watching him work, although her shoulders stoop wearily she gives no indication of actually resting her head for some time.

“Goodnight.” He whispers, reaching out to tuck a thick tendril of her hair behind her ear, it does not quite catch though and falls messily back in front of her face. She blows it away with a puff of air and Caleb smiles just scarcely, a minimal flash of teeth.

Laying down after a day of heavy travel is immensely satisfying, he becomes instantly lost in recounts of the day, envisions the areas and the faces and the smells. He does not think about Mollymauk at all, not a single flicker of a wayward fantasy, and when he admittedly does think about the man he thinks of ways to excuse his sudden presence at the forefront of Caleb’s mind. He wasn’t just remembering being crowded to the wall by him, he was trying to remember the interior design of the corridor. He was not thinking about the way he smiled in the field, broad and warm and right, he was trying to remember what time it was then, how far they had travelled since the morning.

His not-thoughts are disturbed by a distant sound and he blinks himself back into focus. He hears footsteps and works to keep his breathing steady, stares at the abyssal blackness of his eyelids and strains his ears. The figure stops moving and Caleb feels the intense pressure of being watched. His skin prickles with the immense weight of void eyes.

“Look, I-” He hears Mollymauk say, low and exhausted.

“Piss off.” Nott bites out, frigid enough that Caleb feels tense for a beat, holds his breath and counts.

“Fair enough.” Mollymauk sighs and Caleb can hear the strain there, the internal debate on whether he should speak further. He hates that he recognises that tone, that he can envision the frown painted across his face in the dark.

Caleb rolls onto his side, back to the pair of them and although his face is muffled by the blankets he speaks.

“Wake me for my watch shift, Nott.” He says and waits for a restless sleep to take him.

\-----

His mouth is dry and his throat is sore and gammy when he blinks awake, face oddly tucked against his chest and his legs thrown out across Nott’s bedroll as well as his own. His eyes are sticky and he blearily rubs them as he blinks into consciousness. There is a dim, bleak sort of sunlight in the camp, enough that he can puzzle out that it is likely early morning. His shoulders are tense and he moves a hand up to rub tiredly at his neck.

Nott is gone. The bedroll to his side is barren and cold and Caleb shrugs his overcoat on only after fastening his books to his person once more.

Over the fire something is sizzling and spitting in lard and it smells disgustingly fatty and savoury, Caleb would even think it bacon but he knows that they have none left.

Beauregard is a mound of blankets and furs, her boot being the only identifying feature sticking out at the base of her burrow. Yasha and Mollymauk are sitting nearby, heads ducked in conversation and Caleb drags his eyes quickly away from where a smile has bloomed across their faces.

Fjord is nowhere to be seen and Jester is prodding their skillet with a small wooden prong, rolling whatever spiced meats she seems to be frying.

Caleb touches his head tenderly, ruffles his hair with his fingers and tries to preen some of the new knots out before he pushes the mass back and out of his eyes. He is still drowsy and tense, caught in that peculiar cradle between full consciousness where his eyes droop and he is so very nearly on the cusp of being drawn into sleep again.

“You look a mess.” Nott tells him as she approaches, she is just screwing the stopper of her flask back into place and her breath smells acidic and warm.

“You did not wake me.” Caleb accuses, scowling and stretching his limbs out with pleasing little cracks as the joints pop into alertness.

“You were tired, I just did your shift too.” Nott shrugs, as if she is being discreet in her coddling. Caleb’s scowl must betray his annoyance because she smiles feral, a baring of pointed fangs, and taps his shoulder. “You owe me.”

“You ass.” Caleb grumbles fondly. He manages to drag is boots over into his lap, works on pulling them into place and adamantly ignores the uncomfortable fitting.

He has so much that he needs to get for them he does not know where to even begin. A tailor, perhaps. Then a cobbler and a smithy, maybe even a herbalist if they can find a decently priced one. A bookkeeper, absolutely, but that is very much a given. A pharmacist, preferably one that is nearsighted or easily distracted, because Caleb cannot afford too many healing tonics, especially if they go everywhere else first-

“Here.” Jester is saying to him, pushing a tankard of something warm and sickly into his open hands. He claps it tightly and ignores the tender pity in her eyes. His embarrassment from the previous evening returns to him almost like a wave and he nods his head in thanks to her.

“What is it?” He mumbles out, feeling the steam collect on his face and the heat burn his nose. It is pungent and definitely enough to wake him up, if not well beyond reasonably alcoholic considering the early hours.

“It is spiced tea. My mother used to make it for me when I was very little.” Jester tells him, a soft, distant smile pulling at her lips. She has a hazy look to her, the vision of someone who is lost in tender memories.

“I cannot imagine the Ruby of the Sea being so maternal.” Caleb confesses. He has not seen the Ruby or any of her portrayals in ink or charcoal but he imagines her to be very much like Jester, perhaps a little taller, perhaps a little colder.

“She was very good to me.” Jester grins, nodding enthusiastically. “She made this for me when I was sick in the winters. The cinnamon is like a happy powder.”

Nott laughs at the obvious innuendo and Caleb rolls his eyes briefly towards the skies.

It takes a lot out of him, not to laugh too.

“Where did you find cinnamon out here?” Nott asks then, peering at the tankard in Caleb’s hands suspiciously as if she can distinguish anything in the beige, creamy water.

“I always have cinnamon. And oregano and paprika and basil and turmeric and chilli flakes and saffron-” Jester recites a collection of herbs that Caleb has mostly ever just read about, why, he is certain that a pinch of saffron costs more than his entire childhood home.

“Of course you do.” Caleb says, not intentionally bitter but cold all the same. Then, catching himself he softens his tone and smiles. “Thank you, Jester.”

He sips the drink, holds the warm liquid in his mouth and savours the tang, the sweet burn, and swallows. It is surprisingly good as it warms his chest, settling heavy and comfortable.

“You did not have to make it for me.” Caleb tells her, passing the tankard to Nott who gulps down a few greedy mouthfuls, scarcely stopping to breathe let alone taste.

“I didn’t.” Jester hisses, folding her arms a little dejectedly. “It is cold and miserable and I wanted it.”

“Oh.” Caleb says, feeling foolish.

“It just helps that you were also sad.” Jester tacks onto the end of their conversation, sniffing and rubbing at her nose. She bounces on her heels twice before spinning to walk back towards the firepit.

Nott hands him the tankard back almost reluctantly, wiping at her mouth with a tarnished sleeve. It is far lighter now and Caleb finds a few dregs of the drink still sloshing about pathetically in the base of the cup. He narrows his eyes very pointedly at her and nurses the remainder of the soothing drink.

Fjord returns to the camp shortly after Caleb has finished his drink and has managed to roll up their bedding into his travel pack. It is a scarce thing and he has no trouble squeezing the sheets and furs into it amongst the books and various trinkets.

“Mornin’” Fjord calls out, his hair is mussed and his eyes are dark and beady against the impression of blue stains beneath them.

“I’m up!” Beauregard responds, muffled from where she is definitely still buried in a mass of blankets and cloaks on the ground. Fjord makes an annoyed little sound in his throat and clears the camp over to her in a series of heavy-footed stomps.

“I thought you said you were going to look at the map-” Fjord bites out, amusement preventing the venom in his words from having any effect.

“I was. I still am going to just, give me a second.” Beauregard stretches out like a feline, joints creaking and yawn almost deafeningly obnoxious.

“May as well give her another hour.” Yasha says and Beau lets out an insulted whine.

Eventually, with a large amount of groaning and a small few curses from Fjord, Beauregard sits upright. She fumbles uselessly around the nest of fabrics she has built for herself and surfaces a tightly rolled map which she unwinds and lays across her lap, tracing it with her finger in exaggerated motions. Fjord scoffs and circles her so that he can peer over her shoulder and murmur about terrain and weather conditions and other things that Caleb feels that he should likely have an interest in but he does not.

“If we head on down to the river we can follow it along to that town and restock before we circle up a bit to the cave systems.” Fjord speaks out loud and Beau’s finger presumably picks out their intended trail on the map.

“Mining towns are so depressing.” Mollymauk grumbles out and Beauregard glances at him from the corner of her eye.

“I mean the mines are closed now so, that’s a thing.” Beauregard tells him, tracing the path a few more times until it is rightfully in her memory before she folds it back into a scroll.

“That’s even more drab.” Mollymauk groans and beside him Yasha smirks.

Their rolls are folded away, belongings tucked and forced and folded into their travel packs until all that remains is the skillet and the smell of something savoury. Jester is spooning the contents out into wooden bowls now, some gruel and travel jerky that has been basted in lard and smothered in paprika.

Caleb doesn’t hate it, not exactly, but it is not something that he would willingly eat under normal circumstances.

Which is saying quite a lot, he thinks.

After they finish they conclude their packing, consult the map several more times and confirm the trails and then they kick the ash and debris out of the firepit, scattering it wayward. Beauregard boots a charred log a good few feet and Fjord’s clapping echoes into the valley.

Jester sings, a lot and loudly.

Barely half an hour into their trek, Caleb’s feet already sore and shoulders already protesting the pack. They find themselves weaving through a thicket of tall, sentinel trees that tower around them like battlements and guard towers. Crops of tangled, biting thorns and shrubbery lines the base of the trunks, thick with foliage, and Caleb finds that he still absolutely hates nature.

Nott has scrambled ahead of the party, taking up the lead with Jester and Fjord. She stays tucked to the woman’s side, a physical barrier between herself and the half-orc and Caleb finds himself keeping an eye on her more than the ground ahead of him with all of its slippy rocks and ensnaring vines.

Something tickles the skin just below his ear, dangerously close to the curve of his neck and he jerks his head abruptly to the side. His eyes snap almost involuntarily over to the place his head once was and he stares blankly at Mollymauk, who's hand is still uselessly hovering near the place Caleb once stood.

“Hey.” Mollymauk says and Caleb’s eyes flicker briefly towards the rest of the Nein, Jester and Fjord and Nott leading ahead, then dipping to the right where Yasha and Beau are walking in content silence. No one is looking at them.

“Hello.” Caleb nods at him and stares at the floor, works on just moving forwards through the messy crops of overgrowth. Mollymauk’s gaudy boots in his peripheral are the only indication he has that he is being joined, otherwise the man walks with an almost eerie composed silence.

“I was a bit of an asshole last evening.” Mollymauk confesses and he sounds so genuinely wounded by the words that Caleb bites down on a huff of laughter, feels his shoulders jump with it.

“Ja.” Caleb responds. Surprisingly, his easy laughter accompanies the word, eases it into something neutral between them.

“My father used to tell me to own up to my mistakes, he said it makes you a better man.” Mollymauk tells him and Caleb considers the words for a moment.

It’s a bitter lie; nearly everything that Mollymauk mentions of his past is convoluted and contradicting. It is strange, watching him speak of a carefully constructed past.

Mollymauk is a specialised construct of ballads and histories that he has designed for himself. A patchwork mantle of phrases and encounters and speeches that he has pulled apart and wrapped around himself like a smother. He speaks of a disembodied family with such a cold distance, not nearly fond enough to have really known them. It is almost ironically like the man’s very clothing, stripped away from countless other beings and slapped together just because he likes it.

He likes gaudy cross stitch so he has his mantle. He like the concept of a reasonable guide so he has his father.

It is like speaking to one of the urchin orphan children in a city, unfamiliar with their parents but so unbelievably expectant of them. No one venerates their mother so much as someone who has never really known her. Who is to say she is not so fantastic if they cannot ever prove her faults?

Caleb had known a child like that when he was young, the girl had occupied the cell opposite him for a fortnight. She was thin and pallid and almost shaking with her rage. Her clothes had been tarnished and her nail beds spoiled and bitten but her mother was a celebrated high priestess so it wasn’t fair.

“My mother will come for me” She had told him, spittle caught in her chipped teeth.

“So will mine.” Caleb had bitten back, his anger almost belying his dishonesty.

In the end the guards collected her, her mother did not.

Caleb's mother never came, but that was alright,he had already known that to be the case.

It was so very unfair.

“Your father sounds like a very kind man.” Caleb tells him because he is ridiculously fond of Mollymauk’s deceit.

“Now don’t get me wrong the man used to reach for the belt at the drop of a hat but he had good intentions of it.” Mollymauk is smiling but there is something faux in the expression, a pinch of his nose that is not quite natural. 

“Being a parental figure is hard.” Caleb confesses after a moment of surprisingly comfortable silence; there was no tension between them, just a strange familiarity and the tranquil, soothing murmur of nature all around them.

“I’m certain, especially with one so... boisterous.” Mollymauk laughs and Caleb feels his cheeks tense in an effort not to grin so brazenly. He offers a subdued smile and feels Mollymauk watching him attentively.

“I feel as if I want to throttle her sometimes, yes, but it is a good kind of annoying.” Caleb speaks lowly, as not to be overheard and Mollymauk ducks closer to him in order to listen.

Mollymauk laughs warmly, a little tender as he replies “Toya made me feel the same way. She would wait until the last minute almost every show to do all of her costume and she was such a brat about it. If she wasn’t happy we would have to postpone the entire thing, the girls had an entire backup routine for when she just wasn’t ready.”

Caleb watches Mollymauk as he recounts the circus, there’s a strange warmth to him, something about the soft curve of his smile and the mirth creasing his eyes that is so genuinely real that Caleb wants to savour it, to bury into the security and joy there.

“I am curious about the circus.” Caleb tells him and is surprised to find that he has not told a lie. “How long had you been with them?”

“For almost as long as I can remember.” Mollymauk hums, raises a hand and scratches the skin against the base of his horn, the seam there seems almost impossibly tender and Caleb wants to trace it with the pad of his thumb, to feel the creases and the merging of bone and gilded gold there.

“Since you were a child?” Caleb feels his surprise, the way his eyebrows hitch towards his hairline.

“Hm.” Mollymauk huffs and Caleb tries to envision such a lifestyle. It is almost imprisonment, he supposes, perhaps with a few more freedoms permitted, but it is still artificial and a cell all the same. Even so it must be so terribly wonderful to have something so familiar, almost like the Nein on their good days, a bondless covenant.

“It was… difficult.” Mollymauk says after a curious silence. Caleb feels that there was something wounded there and he appreciates that Mollymauk decided to share even that moment with him.

It feels like more than he deserves, to be extended that vulnerability.

“I imagine.” Caleb tells him, and then he feels his face give way to the pull of a smile, “I was a bastard as a child.”

“No? Really? I honestly never would have assumed-” Mollymauk’s laugh is flighty and inviting, something that makes Caleb want to press his head to the man’s chest and become lost in the comfort there. He recalls a blurred, abstract memory of being held and happy, feeling a rumbling laughter against him that must have been his mother but may have been Nott.

His chest drops like iron manacles at the memory, of even wanting that from Mollymauk at all, and Caleb feels abruptly cold in the way that often announces the swooping dread of his fear.

“Hey now, I was just seizing the opportunity, I wasn’t entirely serious.” Mollymauk croons at him, voice strained around his pronounced smile and his inability to hide it.

Caleb does not respond. Instead he keeps his gaze pointedly forwards, amongst the trees and their surrounding (empty. void. safe.) Mollymauk is an abstract shape in his peripheral, stark enough that Caleb can make the impression of him as if he is one of those remarkable surrealist paintings that nobles covert, Caleb can see his form and is left to piece together the man. He is smiling still, all wickedly sharp teeth and crinkled eyes and so Caleb offers him a wry raise of his eyebrow in a silent bid to continue.

It is something the man can elect to ignore. It is something safe to extend between them.

Mollymauk latches onto it with a huff of laughter.

“Apologies, you are not that much of a bastard but you cannot just tease me with childhood tales and then not deliver.” Mollymauk tells him, sternly, as if genuinely morose.

“Did you ever play Foxes and Hounds?” Caleb asks him, perhaps a little too abruptly, definitely far too eager. He restrains his voice into something slower, more controlled and he works not to smile when Mollymauk shakes his head.

“It is a hiding game. Two units, one of Foxes and one of Hounds. The Foxes have to get to the höhle, the safe spot, and the Hounds hunt them down.” Caleb is flooded by a sort of warmth at the memory of youthful splendour, when the worst of his worries were unusual bruises and keeping up with the neighbour girl who had spindly long legs and could outrun him by miles.

“I think I can predict where this is going.” Mollymauk pitches in, warm and smirking.

“I would always give the other Foxes away - the Hounds would be distracted and I could get back to safety.” Caleb knows, with a twinge of almost childish guilt summoned forth by years of reprimand, that he should be apologetic. Instead, and perhaps this is coaxed in part by Mollymauk’s laughter and proximity and hearty grin, he feels so entirely enthused.

“You are such a bastard.” Mollymauk says, and he runs a hand through his torrent of curling hair. Caleb tracks the movement and for a brief moment finds himself envious of a limb.

“Remind me not to fall into one of your bad books.” Mollymauk adds, almost weary.

“I would not betray you. I am not a fox and the Guard are very much worse than hounds.” Caleb knows that his words are thick with emotion, his voice a hushed hiss that is resolutely bitter.

“I would very much like to believe that to be true, one day.” Mollymauk tells him and Caleb supposes that that is something.

The ground is terse and unforgiving as it presses against the sole of his boot, each step is becoming less pleasant as the plush foliage laden earth gives way to folding hills that curve downwards in a steep, overhanging arch. Rocks and stones bite against his feet and Caleb can feel the enticing siren call of simply being able to sit down at camp at nightfall. It is the simple things, he supposes, that keeps a spectral man from falling to pieces. Mollymauk walks beside him, and while his boots are rather nicely made for all that they are gaudy they are not meant for travelling if the way he slips near every step is any indication. Caleb does not laugh, which he thinks is a kindness.

Eventually the pathway diverts into a snaking trail embedded into the rock face as it declines into a valley below. Large stone steps are carved out of the rock and they are slick with ice and moss. Fjord takes up the lead, guiding them down with a stabilising hand on their shoulders. Jester and Yasha and Beau and then Nott, who looks at Caleb pointedly before beginning her decent. Caleb takes the looks as a summons and works to close the distance between them.

He takes three steps before hears Mollymauk speak up once more, tone low and a little breathless with a pitying laugh.

“Do I have your forgiveness?” He asks and Caleb falls abruptly short. He knows that he is only speaking of the previous evening but it is so incredibly easy to place those words alongside all of his pains and traitorous scars and it is so incredibly terrifying because despite everything Caleb thinks that he just might, if Mollymauk were to promise to be so easy with him.

Caleb is so weary of difficult things, he has been worn to a husk by the perils of the world and for once everything seems to be incredibly natural. That is not how the universe has treated him, this is not how it is supposed to be. Caleb looks at himself, pallid and phantom and wilting and he cannot begin to imagine a world where Mollymauk will ever care for him the way he needs, the way he is supposed to.

That must be the world’s cruel irony, Caleb decides.

“We will see.” He tells the man, nodding at him in a vague acknowledgement before he falls into place at Nott’s side. She clasps his wrist tightly as she scrambles down the giant stone blocks and Caleb cares to ensure that she does not fall.

Mollymauk follows them down shortly after.

\-----

Evening falls quickly in the frigid lands and Fjord call them to a rest as they pass a decrepit cut-stone home. It is built up of large charcoal grey blocks and a tiled roof with a few shingles that have cracked and fallen loose. It is only one floor in height but it is too far gone to be worth claiming for their rest; the solitary window pane has been kicked out and the few stone blocks around the door frame are chipped at and broken, allowing the chill in.

They may as well sleep outside and then at least avoid the risk of having the unstable structure come down on their heads.

Their journey points them through even more sentinel pines, a tall crop that must be a good few miles in distance. Onward from the forest they should arrive at a farmstead, if the map is reliable, and beyond that farm there is the small mining town of Yggshill.

From that town it is a case of asking questions until they inevitably stumble into the bandits. If the Gods were kind the bandits would find them first and save Caleb’s tired feet the journey but as they set out their rolls and make a quick stew of mushrooms and stale jerky the night is resolutely tranquil.

Caleb has just finished his food, with a few strips of the jerky stowed away in his leather pouch, just in case, when they dole out watch shifts. He is rendered with the first watch shift simply by good grace of knowing that he won’t argue against it. His partner is Beauregard, which he does not mind. She tends to adopt a manner of solitary silence in the evenings, glossy eyes and encompassed by her thoughts. She remains steadfastly alert, spry and aware and Caleb finds that despite his reluctance to admit to it he trusts her entirely with the task.

High above, pygmy stars are veiled by wisps of silvery cloud, the moon in half crest and illuminating the expansive field with an almost eerie white mist of light. The area they rest in is sparse, little more than the remnants of the home’s garden. They have set their fire pit and rolls within the rickety fence, a structure that is wilting and eaten away by the weather. The earth beneath his feet is soft and plush, something that was tilled perhaps too much.

“I’m going to find Beauregard. Try and get some sleep.” Caleb speaks lowly, catching Nott’s attention as he disturbs the silence between them. The camp is morbidly silent, enough that he knows that everyone is listening in. At least, Mollymauk, Jester, and Fjord are, because Beauregard and Yasha disappeared to scout nearly an hour ago and they have yet to reemerge.

“I’ll try.” Nott tells him although her words are pinched and distorted with worry. Her eyes are watching the gaping maw of the derelict building wearily, almost a scowl if not for the tension of her jaw. She fears not the darkness as much as the terrible beasts that call it their home.

“Do not grind your teeth.” Caleb warns, because that is what he has always been told.

“I’m not.” She bites back at him and Caleb notes the way her lips marginally relax as she refrains.

“Goodnight.” He briefly touches a hand to her cheek, a parting gesture, hoping to at least calm the girl.

He leaves their conjoined rolls and passes the remaining group to where the rickety garden gate has been latched closed. It opens with minimal protest and an angry groan of the hinges, he is just closing it behind him when Jester catches his eye from where she is perched by the fire.

“Caleb! Wasn’t Fjord’s cooking so good?” She asks eagerly, still so ridiculously wired and enthused despite their exhausting venture and lack of actual food.

Fjord’s cooking wasn’t particularly anything. It was not nearly nutritious, it tasted of old leather and salt, but it served to fill his stomach and Caleb is working on not being a dick to these people, he needs to at least make an effort.

He smiles a little and nods his head shortly. He is staring into the flame and he squints against it, his jaw feels ridiculously tense, as if it knows the smile is faux and is trying to betray him.

“Did you just stub your toe?” Jester asks just at the same time as Nott hisses a little viciously at him, “Don’t grit your teeth.”

“I didn’t - it was, I was smiling.” He says and is smiling no longer, he feels the pull of a frown and swallows thickly. He did not think his smile was so strained.

“Oh. Well that was a good thing, Fjord! He smiled!” Jester tells him, as if she needs to translate Caleb’s words. She likely has to, if he is speaking as lowly as it feels, scarcely a whisper of volume.

“I’m certain that he loved it.” Mollymauk says then and Caleb glances over automatically because his eyes have resolutely decided that if Mollymauk is there then they need to look, to drink in his expression and his actions and his laughter.

How incredibly pathetic.

Pathetic, indeed it is. Does the realisation of this stop him from looking? Decidedly not, he confirms as he notes the curve of the man’s smirk as he glances between Jester and Fjord.

Beau. he reminds himself sternly, and heads off in the direction of the treeline the women had first disappeared within. It is stark and eerie amongst the innards of the forest, where the trunks and shadows are distorted and form shapeless imaginings. Caleb toes the edge of the trees, only dipping in a few steps or so before retreating back to the relative safety of the field. There are still bandits looming in these lands and he would rather keeps his purse full and his organs internal.

Eventually he comes across a crop of heather sprigs that have been trampled down by heavy boots and knowing that Yasha has a weighted step he follows the disturbed shrubs into the trees. Almost instantly he is thrown into darkness without the comforting presence of the moon being able to light his way and so he presses his hands against the trees and keeps a keen eye on his surroundings.

There is a clearing of sorts ahead of him, where the trees have fallen back almost suddenly in order to make way for a large oak that encompasses the entire space like a monolith construct. Swooping, interwoven roots splay across the area and they turn and rest serpentine around the trunk like so much filigree.

He finds Beauregard pinned against this tree. More aptly, he finds Yasha pinning Beauregard against the tree.

Caleb falters and immediately feels seized by panic; it is dark and he cannot make out everything exactly, just motions of colour and the incessant shrieking of his mind telling him that something must be wrong.

“Hey.” He hisses and braces himself, summons forth something burning and carnal to sizzle in wait against the pads of his fingers, just in case.

His voice is too loud against the silence and with a hulking shift Yasha freezes, rolls back her shoulders and regains her colossal height and turns to narrow her gaze towards hims. He risks a glance because he has to be sure and - and well, Beauregard is fine. Slightly flushed and unimpressed but whole and alive all the same.

Which means that Yasha was not murdering her. Which means that they were, well. Oh fuck.

“Gods, sorry.” He sputters and shakes away the restless spell from his fingers with a few errant waves of his hand. He feels a burning heat against the nape of his neck and a churning, probing embarrassment root itself in his chest.

“Thanks.” Beauregard bites out, running a hand across her face and stomping toward him. Caleb does not flinch when she falls to his side but it is a lucky thing, he is certain that if she were to so much as yell at him now he would likely stumble. He is too flighty and groups are so much confrontation and commitment.

“I thought that-” Caleb starts and then decides that it is better left unfinished. 'I thought that she was killing you' would not inspire much favour from the woman who has done nothing wrong other than appear slightly terrifying.

“To your credit, we were lost.” Yasha tells him, surprisingly composed considering what Caleb had just disturbed.

“We need to go on watch.” He tells her, gesturing loosely between himself and Beauregard, who has fallen to Yasha’s side as if beckoned by some unseen wave.

“I won’t apologise for keeping her from you.” Yasha’s face gives way to a tender, almost vulnerable smile that Caleb would likely find endearing if he were still fourteen and transfixed by his romantic tales and idealised novels.

“Gods - gross, that’s fucking sappy.” Beauregard scoffs, a smile betraying her embarrassment.

Caleb stalks a short distance behind the pair as they return to the camp and he is thankful that they are not an overt sort of couple, there are gentle touches but nothing more, nothing that is enough to make him feel bitter.

As they breach the treeline Yasha presses a fond kiss to Beau’s cheek and the woman laughs in such a genuine, hearty way that Caleb feels almost an intruder, standing amongst the heather and the wheatgrass and watching Beauregard drop her bravado for just a moment.

He wonders if it would be the same with Mollymauk, whether something as simple as a chaste kiss would begin to break down the layers of deceit and fabricated histories and if he would catch a genuine glimmer of the man behind it all. The man who, despite Caleb’s trepidation and doubts, is intended to love him so fully.

Yasha leaves them and Beauregard’s smile eases into a small, bashful curve of her lips as she watches her go. Eventually they make their way to a crop of feverflowers and settle down. There is a good view of the expansive field, the dismantled home with a flickering flame casting arching shadows across the stone work. He can see the treetops and the sloping curves of mountains breaching the sky and if he squints he is almost certain that he can see the hazy lamplight of a town in the distance, nestled amongst the trees on the mountain base, perhaps a day or so away. 

“So, can you like keep this on the downlow for now?” Beauregard asks him abruptly. She has straightened out her hair and cloak into something far more respectable and she is holding her knee close to her chest as she rests on the earth. Her shoulders are sloped almost vulnerably and Caleb nods at her softly.

“Of course.” He tells her and she smiles distantly.

“It’s not a big deal, we just want to wait until we’re more settled down somewhere.” Beauregard tells him and then with an annoyed groan she shrugs and scratches her neck. “I just don’t like it when people know my business.”

“I understand that.” Caleb finds himself saying, and he discovers with a start that he has been remarkably honest with these people today.

“It should not be anyone else’s concern, whoever you want a quick tumble with.” Caleb says, lowly. It is part of travelling with a group; there is no harm in taking a fancy with someone and acting on it so long as you stay alert and keep on top of your job.

“Hm, tumble.” Beauregard laughs and Caleb risks a glance towards her, she is leaning closer to him as if about to confide in a secret and he inches minimally closer himself, in order to coax it out of her.

“No we’re like, the real deal here. The big S and M.” Beau says and then, her eyes growing wide she says “as in the Soulmate thing not the weird sex thing.”

“I had gathered.” Is all that Caleb offers by way of reply. His heart is suddenly a very present fixture in his throat, beating a rhythm that resounds almost deafening in his ears. He knows it is unwise and not particularly socially acceptable to probe but Caleb is dreadfully curious and desperate in an unflattering mixture and so he takes a deep breath and clear his throat.

“How do you, she, you both, know?” He croaks on the words and falls very silent, desperate not to miss a solitary detail. Permitting that they are a normal coupling there will be no markings, no words, no runes, no scarring to give them away. However Beauregard and Yasha found out, that’s exactly how Mollymauk should have known, should have noticed something.

He is not like Caleb, he does not have sister wounds scrawled across him like a brand. His calling should have been subtle, something to make him feel compelled to fall to Caleb’s side.

He has to know at least something.

“Gods, it was hard to miss. I felt like I got run through with a sword! I thought that I had I had been stabbed by one of you dicks for a minute.” Beauregard laughs in a breathless, giddy sort of way, leaning closer to continue her telling. “But nope, it was her, it was just her. I looked at her and my body sort of just, felt electrified? I wanted to reach out to her, my mind was telling me to do it, isn’t that freaky?”

“She refused you, though.” Caleb recalls, the stony distance that the woman maintained within the tavern, even throughout the show.

“In all fairness she got the same feeling, but she was meeting all of us at once, it could have been anyone.” Beauregard shrugs, nonchalant and Caleb frowns.

“Then how come you - could it not have been Mollymauk?” Caleb asks despite knowing that it would have been impossible.

“Well, I guess, but I knew that it was her.” Beauregard tells him, shortly.

“But-” Caleb protests and Beauregard’s irked groan cuts him short.

“I’m gay Caleb, it’s not going to be the dude.” She tells him, wearing a pointed look of exasperation.

“Fair.” Caleb tells her and finds himself in agreement - probably wouldn’t be the man.

It leaves him with a pressing thought however, one that makes his chest ache bitterly. If it is so blatantly obvious why hasn’t Mollymauk at least broached it with someone? Surely he should believe that one of them is his, if not Caleb then perhaps Jester.

Caleb swallows pointedly around the niggling thought that is burrowing presently into his mind: it’s because Mollymauk does know. He is fully aware and he knows but he doesn't want.

Mollymauk does not want Caleb and Caleb cannot say that he is surprised. Mollymauk is a grand, expressive man with tales and riddles and a smile that leaves Caleb feeling delighted and warm. He has a collection of fake and progressively ridiculous stories about his past and Caleb is utterly intrigued by him.

And Caleb? Caleb is a phantom of a man who left a tremendous part of himself behind in a cell somewhere. 

He looks at Mollymauk and he _feels_ , It is just a shame that it is not requited.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this chapter took so long lads, I honestly have no excuse I just got myself addicted to God of War. 
> 
> as always your comments mean the world to me and I would die for any one of you. shout out to my best friend for putting up with me chatting about this fic almost 24/7 despite the fact that she has no clue what Critical Role is, she is the backbone to this mess.

Sunlight is barely a present fixture in the hills when they break camp the following morning. The breeze is feeble and biting and the group is increasingly sombre due to it. Their packs are tucked away and a stoic sort of military silence falls across the party. They travel among the tall, sentinel pines without a word of warmth passing between them.

Caleb is exhausted, the pack biting an angry, deep groove into the flesh of his shoulder where the treated leathers bore down on him. Nott is a silent, flimsy figure at his side. The grass is dewy beneath their feet and as Caleb picks his way through the plush overgrowth, the new blades of wheatgrass squeak at the touch of his boot.

The shanty town of Yggsdril is a hard day’s travel ahead of them, and as Caleb casts a glance about to find Jester and Beauregard leading up the front, with Yasha and Mollymauk strolling idly behind, tucked together in conversation, he finds that their worn, tired expressions all betray how exhausted the journey has left them.

Hitching the pack higher onto his shoulder Caleb pushes forward through the trees.

  
\-----

The finest tavern Yggsdril has to offer happens to be a lopsided, stone cast building with white washed walls and a deck that is glossed with a remarkable number of beige stains. A curved hanging sign is set above the large oak door. It creaks in the breeze and Caleb squints hard at it to discover that it is a circular buckler shield re-purposed through paints and varnish and a large, swooping font that reads: The Pit Pony Inn.

Caleb studies the rearing portrait of a rather unimpressed looking pony, coal grey with a grubby, sheared mane.

Fjord leads them in, and the pungent stench of charred sandalwood almost overwhelms his senses. There is a small crowd occupying the hearth room, a large, barren fire pit encompasses the leftmost wall like a gaping maw, built up of red brick and iron filigree. A long, ragged looking bar rests against the back wall, funnelling off to the left there is a wooden staircase ascending up into the innards of the building.

“Welcome! Good Morning!” A voice cries out from behind the bar, and a few sullen looking patrons cast their gazes up from the swirling confines of their tankards to investigate the sudden noise.

“Yeah, it’s evening now.” Beauregard says, already approaching the bar with the weary bravado of a pack mule in sight of their stall. Eager for a rest but so incredibly reluctant to show their exhaustion.

“Oh well in that case I should bid you a good evening.” Says the woman, chuckling self-consciously into the curl of her palm. She is a withered and stooped form, scarcely peering over the lip of the bar where she leans on it. Caleb only barely notices the point of her ear from behind the slender tendrils of silvery hair. Her cloak is dark and frayed around the edges, as if cut from a fabric not intended to be tailored.

Caleb looks at her, the deep set wrinkles carving grooves into her ashen face. She catches his gaze with soft, squinting blue eyes and Caleb pulls his lips back into a brief flash of a smile before dropping his eyes very harshly back down to study the bar.

“Oh, good evening!” Jester speaks up then, squeezing between the party to lean over the mottled surface. One of her heavily jewelled hands reaches out in greeting and the old woman shakes it feebly with a genuine, absent-toothed smile. “I am Jester, it is very nice to be meeting you. These are my friends-”

“The Mighty Nein, you may have heard word of us.” Fjord supplies, scratching his chin in the strange, slow drag of fingers he tends to adopt when nervous.

“Oh, I haven’t” The woman tells them, smiling and Caleb feels an abstract sort of relief.

“Well you know us now.” Jester insists, clapping her hands ahead of her and resting them daintily on the bar top. “We are very tired, you see, and we were wondering whether you have any rooms.”

“Oh yes - I have several rooms.” The woman nods her confirmation. Her movements are slow and dragging, as if Caleb is watching some ancient primordial beast reawaken, stiff jointed from slumber.

“And… are any of them available?” Mollymauk pitches in, inclining his head, a single, arched eyebrow pitched ludicrously close to his hairline.

“Oh.” Says the old elf briefly, and she sucks her lips into an incredibly thin line. The impression is enough to draw a smile out of him as Caleb is struck with the memory of having seen a wrinkled, gloomy tortoise as a child. “We have some, yes.” She finally croaks out, voice a warble, as if a crow.

“I will take one.” Caleb tells her, perhaps too firmly because Jester flinches and casts him a startled look over the curve of her shoulder. He holds her gaze silently, tilting his head marginally in some mimed apology before he eases between the group so that he can speak to their host more clearly. “A room, for my friend and I.”

He throws a gesture between himself and Nott and the woman blinks between them before a strange frown twists her expression into something bitter. There is palpable hesitation in her slow reach beneath the bar, and Caleb marginally shifts ahead of Nott, shadowing her with his presence.

“Three gold a night.” She tells them, and her eyes are narrowed suspiciously. Caleb hurriedly pulls three, chunky coins from his pocket and passes them to the woman. He drops one of them clumsily in the exchange, and it clatters against the marble counter with a rhythmic jungle. At least it causes her to finally look away, Caleb thinks, thankful.

“Here we go, upstairs, turn left, third door you see. Should have a few chips out of the frame, looks like a spell rune.” The key she presents them with is small, about the length of Caleb’s thumb, and he grips it tight between his fingers. The gold is clearly just a painted adornment, and the metal is cool and coarse to the touch like brass.

“Thank-” Caleb starts and clamps his mouth closed as the woman makes a low, humming sound towards them.

“I should expect no funny business from you and your… friend.” She says, voice laced with some sour tone. Her lips twist, pursed together bitterly.

Caleb decides against speaking to her, he does not want to risk being kicked out when the prospect of a bed already beckons him. He does not even take too serious an offence at her words; he and Nott have been called far worse for doing far less in their travels, he will not begrudge her her suspicions. Caleb is many things but he is trying to be less hypocritical.

With a low, dismissive noise he throws a gesture towards the group and turns to make his way upstairs. He can hear the sound of Beauregard crowd forward, pockets clinking with an innumerable amount of silver ball bearings.

“In a bit, then, Caleb.” Fjord calls after him as he reaches the base of the staircase. Nott is low and quiet at his side, eyes roaming the expansive room with her curious calculation, something that is honed by hardship and experience. Likely she is marking exits (there are more for her than there are for Caleb, he has appraised the building and he has two options: the door, or a large, glass window towards the back.) although perhaps she is just suspicious of some the patrons.

The stairs do not creak, although they shudder on their foundations, as if almost ancient. The landing and walls are worn down, the glossy paint vanished by the constant trampling of feet and age.

“What does it say, Caleb?” Nott asks of him when they come to the third door on the left. It is large and plain, with a few nicks deep into the wood that leave protruding splinters. The door handle is brass and stained with something dark, and Caleb finds his eyes drawn away from it to study the rune instead.

“Oh.” He says, eyes tracing the familiar markings, then, pushing the door open he casts a glance to Nott. “It says, ‘bitch.’”

“Oh. Nice.” Nott laughs, and ducks under his arm to crowd into the room.

It is plain and homely, inside. They do not have a window, but a few misplaced boards towards the lip of the ceiling allow a slight breeze to slip into the room. A single, large bed is laden with linens and two fluffed pillows. A bedside desk houses a small wooden cup for holding pens or trinkets and a silver water basin rests alongside it. Tucked beneath the desk there is a large, curved arm chair with a displaced leg that leaves it slouching precariously to the side. 

“I’d give it a seven.” Nott says, eyes roaming around the room, drinking in the bare wooden floors and the unremarkable walls. She peels her mask down to reveal her face and a small, content smile is creasing her lips.

“I’m saying nine, for the graffiti.” Caleb adds, easing the door closed with his foot. As soon as the lock clicks into place he drops his travel pack to the floor, feeling the tension seep from his shoulders at the loss of weight to bare. Then, because he has missed him dearly, Caleb clicks his fingers and summons Frumpkin into their plane.

It is curious, conjuring forth the creature. He feels some ethereal tug just to the right of his forehead, as if he is about to develop a headache but nothing comes of it.

Frumpkin blinks at him silently, leaping up to perch on the desk. He does not seem terribly pleased to see them, although he is never quite enthused unless one of them is offering food.

“I have missed you.” Caleb tells the cat, and tries not to feel like a fool. Nott huffs a laugh at him, but otherwise remains occupied with unpacking her gear, bustling about with alchemic ingredients and glass vials that clink together in shudders.

“Do you think he has missed me?” Caleb asks Nott and the girl hums deep in thought for all of three moments before she nods towards him.

“Like a knife in the ribs.” She says and Caleb feels a smile break across his face before he can restrain it. It is not a handsome smile, more a baring of teeth and an unflattering scrunching of his nose.

Caleb, for lack of anything better to do, toes off his boots and sets them aside near the base of the bed, as is a habit he has kept since being very small. At the points he did not have shoes, he would leave his socks there, just out of devotion to the peculiar ritual. He lays back on the bed, willing his muscles to try and relax after the trek. Nott has cleared a large portion of the floor now and has erected her rather impressive assortment of alchemy ingredients and utensils. Something reeking of rotten flesh and salt brine begins to omit from the corner she resides in and Caleb grimaces against it. Eventually, Frumpkin makes his way over from the desk and curls up across Caleb’s chest. The weight and warmth is pleasant and heavy, and Caleb feels that for the first time in a very long time he is drifting into something that is almost ease.

If not for his gaudy companions downstairs. If not for the bandits in the hills. If not for his murderous hands.

“Are you doing alright over there?” Nott asks him abruptly, and Caleb blinks towards her, cross-legged amongst her craft, and he smiles.

“Tired. I have missed having a bed with a mattress.” He tells her, and she makes a low noise of agreement in her throat.

“I’m claiming the right side.” She says, ducking back towards a small ivory mortar that she is working with a steady rhythm. Caleb nods. Nott has always been fond of sleeping closest to the door in all of their sleeping holds, but Caleb cannot understand the want to do it, especially in a place like this. If there is only one door that is where the danger would come from, and Nott is boldly presenting herself to it.

A few moments into his rest, lulled by the methodical sound of Nott at her work, occasionally disrupted by a cork popping or her incoherent mumbling, Caleb finds himself nodding off. It is comfortable, he fondly find himself reminded of being young and content, of being alone with Nott.

The creak of the door opening disrupts him. Immediately Nott’s movements come to a grinding halt and Caleb narrows his eyes towards the entrance. He can’t really move unless he plans to disrupt Frumpkin and he is far too comfortable to upset the cat.

Mollymauk is standing there, pack slung over one shoulder and his free hand running tersely through his hair. Caleb is immediately struck with the thought that he must somehow look idiotic, and he feels the creeping warmth of embarrassment burn the nape of his neck. Mollymauk does not comment on anything, instead his gaze falls down to Frumpkin and his lips give way to one of his wicked smiles.

“She has two rooms.” He says by way of greeting, and the words pierce Caleb’s chest with something frigid and foreboding.

“So… this is the arrangement.” Mollymauk shrugs, helplessly, although his smile is not at all displeased. Rather, he shuts the door behind himself without a shred of discomfort. Even as he sets his travel bag down rather heavily on the padded chair that rests adjacent to the desk, threaded holes peppering the fabric.

“I think that, maybe, well.” Caleb stammers out, struggling to pull himself upwards on his elbows, enough that Frumpkin begins a lazy, slow descent down his chest to land unceremoniously in his lap with an unimpressed mewl.

“Here.” Mollymauk disrupts, and his hand emerges from one of the many hidden pockets of his ornate coat, and he presents three gold coins in the centre of his palm. Caleb blinks at them and Mollymauk shakes his hand insistently.

“For the room.” He says, and drops them onto the bed by Caleb’s side. Caleb blinks down at them and slowly reached out to run his fingers across them. They are as genuine as any gold piece he has seen (which, to be fair, they are still a fairly recent occurrence for him) and so he throws one towards Nott, who catches it wordlessly.

“That is one gold.” Caleb says, rubbing the two coins he has left together anxiously between his fingers.

“Consider the rest a payment for the inconvenience.” Mollymauk laughs, and sits himself rather heavily at the base of the bed. Caleb can feel the warmth and the weight of his presence by his feet and so he pulls them cautiously back, enough that the strange comfort resides.

“Danke.” Caleb murmurs, tucking the coins away for lack of anything else to say. It is strange, to have Mollymauk intrude on his own domestic space. It is even more unusual that Caleb finds that he does not mind it, in fact, it is a strikingly natural feeling. He feels as if he could lay back again and drift in his idle thoughts, that Nott can resume her work, that Caleb can be lulled by the grinding of the pestle and the only difference is that Mollymauk is also there. Almost as if that could work.

“We have claimed the bed.” Nott bites out, a very prominent punch of venom in her words, and any illusions of docile tranquillity are shattered.

“Fair enough.” Mollymauk tells her and there is a tense beat of silence in which Caleb flounders for anything rational to do that does not include embarrassing himself or staring too sternly at the man.

“So.” Mollymauk says, and Caleb accidentally catches his gaze. It is bright and warm, eyes creased and the familiar dimple that Caleb is so fond of dipping into his cheek. “Are we going to comment on the fact that poor old Brynhild absolutely thinks that you are both, shall we say, going at it like animals?”

“What.” Nott bites out just as Caleb chokes on his tongue.

“After you left. Of course she was trying to be polite about it and I don’t think Jester knew what she was implying, when she asked if you were together and well, I would try and avoid touching too much in front of her. Less you give the poor woman a heart attack.” Mollymauk rambles, his eyes never once leaving Caleb and his smile melding his face into something pleasant and strikingly young.

“Gods no.” Caleb hisses, and feels a giddy sort of humour burrow in his chest, “That would be like-”

“Like sleeping with a brother.” Nott interrupts, lips drawn back into a grimace, the mortar in her hand topples precariously to the side as she stares at them in a sort of uncomfortable disbelief.

“Besides, I’m not into Caleb.” Nott says shortly, and Caleb nods along to that, for lack of a better way to react. At least their familial bond is mutual, he is resolutely glad to discover. It is easy to convince himself that he is unwanted, and although she is abrasive and roundabout, Nott is very reassuring that she likes him.

If she was done with him she would vanish like a swooping breeze and Caleb would be helpless to stop her.

“Honestly, you are welcome to go tell that to our host.” Mollymauk laughs, and swings his legs up to perch fully on the bed. He settles, entirely opposite Caleb and is facing him as if he anticipates some sort of conversation to bloom between them. Caleb remains composed and in silence, the only sound occupying the room continues to be the grating crunch of powder as Nott resumes her work.

It is particularly unnerving, the eager incline of Mollymauk’s eyebrows, the unnaturally blank eyes that could be looking almost anywhere at all but Caleb is nearly sure that his pupil-less gaze is honed in on him.

“Look-” Caleb bites out, very much intending to ask Mollymauk to budge off of the duvet so that he can sleep. However before he gets much more than an exasperated mumble out the man claps his hands together and in a breathless, excited tone asks:

“Cards?”

“No.” Caleb tells him, without truly considering it. He is infinitely intrigued by Mollymauk and his cards, far more so than by any other carnival trick. There is something carnal about him that reeks of an affinity for magics, and just enough convoluted deceit and shrouded lies that Caleb wants to puzzle it out. The cards may be magic, but he could very easily just be lying, and Caleb does not want to bare his throat should it be the former.

“Oh but you’re such an interesting read-” Mollymauk says and then, folding his hands together softly, he sighs. “Another time.”

‘Absolutely not.’ Caleb does not say, instead he nods along and thinks it rather firmly.

“That doesn’t stop the predictions though.” Mollymauk says and Caleb feels a throbbing tension bloom beneath an eyebrow as he steadfastly struggles to not roll his eyes. He instead tips his head to the side and stares at the door, studies the indent of a boot at the worn base of the frame and does not acknowledge the tender smile painting itself across Mollymauk’s face as he hunches forward and squints, as if examining him.

“I can feel a plethora of things that I want to say and I am honestly wounded that you will not give me this.” Mollymauk says softly, and Caleb feels his nose scrunch up as he attempts to swallow a smile. He glances back towards the man, who has his lips pursed, lost in the trappings of thought.

“Just one?” He asks, lowly, and Caleb feels his resolve crumble like an ancient pillar.

“One.” Caleb relents. The words are a ghost on his lips, barely a breath of noise behind them, but Mollymauk seems to pick them up clearly, eyes tracing over his face once before the man’s slender hand disappears into the labyrinth confines of his cloak.

The Tarot deck is surprisingly hefty, and Caleb watches the mesmerising streaks of colour and illustrations intently as Mollymauk cards them between his deft fingers, dancing a few of them across his knuckles in a bravado display that Caleb reluctantly finds rather impressive. Eventually the man slows the movements down to a gentle leafing through the deck, as if he is browsing a book.

“Alright, Caleb Widogast.” Mollymauk begins, a jaded inflection in his tone that is faux, intentionally mystical but just a little too sarcastic. “Allow me to consult the cards and to divulge into the veiled realm of the profane, just for a mere moment or two, to catch a glimmer of your personage.”

“I am, erm, already quite familiar...” Caleb says, his voice a whisper despite knowing that their hushed discussion is needlessly intimate. “Familiar with myself.”

“Are you? Really?” Mollymauk grins, a baring of wicked fangs that sends a thrill of something warm and erratic running through Caleb’s veins.

He can so very easily understand why Mollymauk was so outrageously popular as an entertainer; something about him demands attention and veneration and Caleb is so pathetically hooked.

“Alright - so here we are. A singular card to summarise everything that is you.” Mollymauk announces, straightening the deck where it rests on his lap and plucking up a singular card, holding it face down. “Something about this seems inadequate.”

‘That sounds about right.’ Caleb thinks and keeps his gaze lowered, watching the way Mollymauk’s heavily tattooed hand smooths over the card’s surface. His hand is large and worn, pocked with threaded scars and uneven blemishes from wielding his swords. They would feel coarse glancing along his jaw, heavy and warm running down his back-

“What is that?” Caleb asks abruptly, banishing his rude, intrusive, unnecessary, delightful, thoughts away as the card is upturned, and an unfamiliar illustration winks up at him.

“Judgement.” Mollymauk says, and Caleb risks a glance towards the man to find him frowning at the card, brows drawn into a brooding expression.

“Here-” He says, finger tracing the impression of an Elvhen figure, radiant and shrouded in golden hues, a tattered banner billows around her and Caleb strains his neck to make it out upside down. “Judgement is a funny one, she’s reversed on this draw so to see this card is a sign that you’re being too critical on the deeds of your past. You need to work on forgiving yourself so that you can carry on with your life.”

“You doubt yourself; always far too harsh. Your insecurities are causing you to miss out on opportunities.” Mollymauk swipes his thumb over the card, tucking it quickly back into the stack with a practised shuffle before pocketing the bundle. He is remarkably quiet, face still drawn into something sallow and Caleb, for all that he doubted the cards, feels hollow.

It was almost too close to the truth.

“All of Jester’s were happy.” Caleb says, forcing a wheezing sort of emotion into his voice to mask his trepidation. It seemed like, in these moments, that Mollymauk knew everything. As if those crimson, void-like eyes witnessed his past and his worries and his terrible, unforgivable wrongs.

“Well, that was your card.” Mollymauk blinks, shrugging one of his shoulders and summoning a collected, lopsided smile. “I think it is fitting of you, and who is to say it is such a bad thing? It has given you valuable advice for improvement.”

“Yeah Caleb, you just need to stop being so sad all the time.” Nott speaks up, voice pitched with suppressed laughter and Caleb jumps at her presence, for a time he was so absorbed he had forgotten her to be there at all.

Without any forewarning Mollymauk raises one of his his large, calloused hands and traces his fingertips feather light across Caleb’s cheek, moving upwards to comb a few locks of hair behind his ear.

His touch leaves a heat in its place that Caleb can feel burn against his skin like a flush. It is difficult, not to tuck his head against the comforting warmth there, to chase some of sort of affection from the man. Instead he holds still and suppresses a shudder that reverberates in his bones as the man’s finger ghosts across the shell of his ear.

“Try not to worry about it.” Mollymauk tells him, voice gentle and soft, the way he had spoken to Toya all those months ago.

Something about his tone and the tender touch leaves Caleb winded, chest heavy and swooping with a breathless sort of adoration.

“Say, Molly?” Nott calls, and the moment is shattered. Caleb flinches and Mollymauk draws his hand quickly back to his side, the fingers falling to his cloak to pick at a few stray threads. Nott is standing at the bed now, leaning across the mattress and staring between them with a flat, unimpressed grimace contorting her face. A dark, oily stain is speckled across her cheek and Caleb leans over to swipe it away with his thumb.

“Do you fancy reading some of my fortunes?” Nott continues, very adamantly ignoring the firm press of Caleb’s doting hands. It squishes her cheek into something almost endearing and Caleb only pulls his hand back to rest on Frumpkin when Mollymauk laughs.

“Oh yeah I’ve got a card right here for you-” He says, dipping a hand into his pocket only to retract it moments later, middle finger straight and titled dangerously close to her face.

“Molly-” Caleb starts, hesitantly.

“That would be the one.” Nott says, then pushing the abrasive hand away from her face she smiles, very much a warning baring of her teeth, “That’s the Tower right?”

“Actually dear this one is the ‘readings aren’t free’ and it means that either you pay or you will just never truly know what the Gods have in store.” Mollymauk smiles, wiggling his fingers briefly towards her face before dropping his hand back to rest by his side.

Nott, rather than deeming the man worthy of a reply, simply crosses her arms loosely across her slight chest, and sucking her lips into a flat, unimpressed expression, looks firmly between the two, tipping her head into a pointed incline.

Mollymauk smiles at her, something broad and not entirely amused. His eyes do not crease at their corners and his jaw twitches marginally as if he is grinding his teeth. Caleb, feeling a horrid sort of tension rising amongst them, catches Nott’s eye and raises an eyebrow in a plea for her to lay off.

She holds his gaze with a pinched, narrowed expression for a few moments before rolling her eyes skyward, breathing deeply as if summoning forth some sort of patience burrowed deep in her bones.

“Right okay, I’m off for drinks.” Mollymauk announces, clapping a hand against his thigh, emitting a noise so abrupt that Caleb jumps once more. He is entirely too twitchy at the moment and he is nearly certain that Mollymauk and his overwhelming presence is to blame for the spike in his anxiety.

“You’re on the floor-” Nott tells him as the man stands, shaking out his gaudy overcoat into something more presentable.

“And I’m in the _chair_ , when I come back.” Mollymauk says, before throwing his hand up in a dismissive wave as he exits the room.

Caleb, silent and absorbed by all sorts of thoughts about Mollymauk sleeping in proximity, cards his fingers through Frumpkin’s coarse fur and sucks on his lip so that he can worry it between his teeth.

He will not be able to take his layers off less the man recognise any of the scars threading across his arms and chest. Which means that Caleb can look forward to sleeping bundled up in his thick, beaten overcoat and shirts.

Fantastic. 

“Can we talk about that?” Nott asks him suddenly, her voice pitched with nerves and Caleb very pointedly does not meet her searching eyes. “Caleb, I think we should discuss that.”

“Nein. Not right now.” Caleb murmurs, and feels a giddy restless thing burrow beneath his sternum, lodging itself precariously against his heart. For some reason Mollymauk had been easy and eager, entirely too familiar amongst them and Nott had certainly picked up on whatever pliable mien he had adopted.

Caleb absently raises a hand to ghost across the tender skin of his cheek, still flushed with warmth from Mollymauk’s touch and he considers the words bestowed by the Gods. Delivered by Mollymauk and his gentle hands. 

Perhaps with time, he thinks, forgiveness may become an option.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! this is still a thing, I actually have a plan layout and everything! also i would just like to say that it is best to assume that I'm around 2-3 episodes behind at all times so if I say something that is wildly inaccurate I guess it's just more of an AU than we first bargained for. 
> 
> as always your comments probably make me happy-cry, because they usually always do.

A low rumble of noise seeps through the old foundations of the Inn and Caleb rolls over beneath the covers. The sun had set nearly three hours ago now and despite his valiant efforts he cannot get comfortable beneath the scratchy, tattered sheets. Nott had settled low in the bed, back arched around the crook of his knee. The heat always gathers beneath the duvet at the bottom of the bedspread, and Nott is prone to seeking out the warmth there.

Caleb is far too hot, though. His linen undershirt is sticking to the back of his shoulders thanks to a sheen of sweat that has gathered, and the leathers of his overcoat are absolutely stifling.

He is convinced that he is going to boil to death before morning and Mollymauk will be entirely to blame.

Blearily, he blinks his eyes into focus and stares at the barren, shrouded corners of the room. Often he finds his mind being drawn back to the comforting reminder that he can just leave. He and Nott can vanish and that would be the end of this stress and trouble. There is something therapeutic in the isolation, the complete confidence in self reliance. Being lonely is dreadful and a blessing; being alone means that he does not have to grow to care about other people.

And he does. Caleb cares about them in a way. Not nearly as much as he does Nott, but enough that he would be miserable if something were to happen to them. To the Mighty Nein.

So even if it does lose him a few comfortable nights of sleep, he is willing to be stuck in the trappings of his too many worn layers if it means maintaining this semblance of belonging, just for as long as he can.

A drawn-out, wailing creak signals the door falling open and Caleb narrows his eyes against the stark candlelight that pools into the room through the marginal crack that appears. He easily recognises the shape of Mollymauk, lithe shoulders sloping with exhaustion and his golden finery ringing with a musical jingle as he eases into the room and closes the door behind him. He crosses the floor in two long strides and in the darkness Caleb watches the shadowy impression of the man slump into the chair.

There is a smell clinging to him, some pungent miasma that is a combination of fire-whisky and sherry. It smells like ash and Caleb scrunches his nose in disgust.

With heavy-handed, loose movements the man works to shed a multitude of layers, discarding his robes and cloaks until all that is left on his torso is the sheer silken undershirt. His skin is almost grey in the scarce light and Caleb’s gaze traces the curves of his muscles, eyes wandering upwards to make out the impression of his handsome face, tired and unguarded. There is something soft to his expression, gentle and free of tension, eyes hooded and hair askew around the base of his gilded horns.

“What time is it?” Caleb asks, abruptly. Truly he had not even intended to speak, and his voice betrays that as he croaks on the words, throat groggy.

“Oh.” Mollymauk starts, hands stilling where they had been working the laces of his boots. “I think it is… almost… late.” Mollymauk squints, eyes narrowing and an amused smile blooming across his face.

“Very late. Why are you still awake?” Mollymauk hums, tilting his head to better rove his eyes across Caleb’s resting body. He feels a self conscious burn radiate across his shoulders but he steadfastly ignores the niggling worry.

“Because…” Caleb murmurs, leaning marginally closer to the man but being mindful not to disturb Nott’s sleeping form. “Because I am not asleep yet.”

Mollymauk blinks at him once, smile trembling at the corners as it grows into a wicked grin. Then, in a voice that is low and warm like whiskey he laughs. It is a soft laughter, born entirely of drunken amusement, and Caleb feels a smile pull his lips marginally upwards at the sound.

“Incredible. That is incredible. I am not asleep because I am awake, too. Or, well, I am awake because I am not asleep.” Mollymauk nods, and he finally sheds his boots, dropping them down with two heavy thunks. He kicks his feet up onto the bedspread, stretching his legs out and his tail easily weaves alongside them, all three heavy presences not a few inches from Caleb himself.

Suddenly the sheet does not feel like quite enough between them. How easily he could reach out and just touch, to run a hand along the shape of his thigh, trace his fingers across the expanse of his tail.

“You were drinking.” Caleb says simply and Mollymauk nods in eager agreement.

“I was. I was drinking and talking, two of my absolute favourite pastimes, mind you. Stories are intricately fascinating and drink is the top way to coax out the good ones.” Mollymauk tells him, seriously. “No one ever shares a good story sober. If they do it just likely was not the best that they have.”

“What stories did you hear?” Caleb asks, setting his head down gently against the plush form of the pillow. The fabric is itchy against his cheek but he ignores it in favour of watching Mollymauk lay his head back against the tall backrest of the chair, twisting unnaturally in order to accommodate the curve of his horns.

“Well. For starters, there is a man with only half an ear who was working one of the card tables. He poured out some gin and told me about his days in the mines, see they used to mine minerals here, not just stones, and this man had a _thing_ for knowing his rocks.” Mollymauk was grinning, eyes closed and tranquil and his smile radiant. “All of this-” he says, gesturing to his ornate jewellery, “is absolutely fake. Most of it is copper dyed golden with oils and paints, but one of them is a genuine artefact.”

“Which one?” Caleb whispers, squinting at the interchangeable mess of chains and stones as if he can make out anything more than abstract shapes in the darkness.

“The old bastard wouldn’t tell me. ‘Tis a trade secret apparently - which is bullshit, I bet he just has a thing for winding people up. Trade secrets aren’t really secret, just titbits of knowledge that people can lord over others when they want to feel superior.”

“So many acts at the Circus were like that, folk thought that they were so much more, just because of their mystery and secrets.” Mollymauk bites out, and Caleb feels some raw emotion there, a bitterness creeping in. “Secrets are the absolute worst. Truly, no, you can’t breathe fire, any fucker in this entire town could eat a bit of fire if they drank a barrel of water first.”

“A barrel?” Caleb starts and Mollymauk huffs some suppressed laugh that is more so a sigh.

“Okay so like, maybe three tankards.” Mollymauk relents, folding his arms. “Three tankards of water, enter stage right, eat a stick of fire, bow, exit stage left, three more tankards of water. You won’t even feel the burn, after a while.”

“That is not such a bad secret to have.” Caleb says, and forces his eyes closed, savours the relaxing weight of Mollymauk presence.

“What about you? Any dastardly secrets?” Mollymauk asks abruptly and Caleb does not start, does not consider revealing his hand, of showcasing their matching threads of scars.

“I can’t-” Caleb starts and then frowns, considers his words before deciding that it is not so bad a secret to share between them. He is almost certain that Mollymauk would not think less of him, and he finds that the confidence he has in the man is strange. “I can’t cast any healing magics at all. They’re just, it’s like trying to read Thieves Cant for me, I don’t understand how it works, and I’ve tried, I’ve tried a lot.”

“Wait-” Mollymauk gasps, and Caleb feels a worrying tension build in the base of his skull at the tone. “Caleb, are you trying to tell me that you may be imperfect as a human?”

“Piss off.” Caleb hisses and Mollymauk hums with a gentle laughter.

“Nope, you’re great anyway. I like you still even if you can’t bestow a few blessings.” Mollymauk says easily, the words rolling and smooth, as if he truly believes them.  Something warm burrows deep in Caleb’s gut, taking residence in his rib cage and blossoming with heat.

All because Mollymauk said that he likes him.

He is as if a child again.

“They have a toy shop.” Mollymauk says, abruptly. “In the lower quarters of the town, near the old quarry. More of a trinket store than anything but-” He shrugs then, quiet and voice ringing with a soft inflection. Caleb is sleep addled and partially lost to the waking world but he is there enough to recognise an invitation.

“Alright.” He says, and hides a smile behind the fold of his blanket.

\-----

Come morning and Mollymauk is gone. There is a bitter chill to the room that has seeped through the shoddy walling and scant insulation, leaving Caleb frigid and his knuckles a pallid blue. Nott is awake, if only barely. Caleb has an inkling that he only came awake due to the uncanny way the mind just _knows_ that everyone else is awake too.

“Mornin’” She murmurs to him, sitting up and stretching out in a way that causes her joints to pop. She pats his cheek once as she looks him over, small hand barely encompassing the curve of his jaw.  

“I think we should go for breakfast.” Nott tells him, running her deft fingers through her hair in a poor substitute of a comb. It does nothing but cause the thick mass of her hair to frizz outwards as if she has been caught in a storm. Caleb does not comment on it.

“I am not adverse to that, no.” Caleb agrees, and, after adjusting his layers so that they are not so abhorrently creased from his sleep, he rises and they head back down to the main hearth room.

It is far quieter in the bleak morning light. A few scentless candles burn freely on tabletops, pooling thick rings of wax at their bases. The fire pit is stoked but only barely, just enough dry logs to keep it crackling and loud; the old bark creaks in the heat.

Yasha is already occupying one of the tables. She sits alone, blinking tiredly down at a bowl of something indistinguishable but likely edible. Her large sword is propped almost comically by her side, it is almost some bastard parallel to an old man and his walking stick but far more terrifying.

Nott quickly plops down in the seat opposite the woman, smiling at her in greeting. Yasha’s lips give way to the bend of a subdued smile at their presence, and Caleb takes it as permission for him to quietly sit down by Nott.

“Did you sleep well?” Nott asks her, eyeing the steaming bowl that rests unattended. Her fingers drum an eager tattoo against the surface of the coarse wooden table and Yasha shrugs one of her behemoth shoulders.

“Well enough… yes.” Yasha says, and then she sighs. “I am still tired. It is, hard to sleep here, I think.”

“Why do you feel that?” Caleb asks abruptly, for once finding his eyes drawn to stare resolutely at the woman, searching her guarded expression. If she feels that something is wrong with this place Caleb is entirely too willing to take that as justification enough to leave immediately. Taking chances and ignoring instincts has never served him well.

“There are not many exists and then? There are hills for miles.” Yasha smiles, perhaps a little strained, more a thin stretch of her lips that Caleb meets with a nod of his head.

“I understand.” He says, because he is entirely too familiar with the anxiety that comes with being trapped and there is little else he hates more.

“It is dumb.” Yasha huffs a laugh that is entirely too self-deprecating. Nott tuts and the drumming mantra of her fingers cease abruptly.

“Hey, if you’re dumb what is that supposed to make us?” Nott asks and Yasha blinks vacantly as if the words were of a foreign tongue.

“She is trying to say that you are not dumb.” Caleb supplies, helpfully.

“Thank you.” Yasha shrugs, and, blinking between her untouched mystery breakfast and Nott’s eager, pleading eyes, she pushes the bowl towards the smaller girl.

“Not a bother at all Yasha. We need to listen to each other if we’re going to sort this out.” Nott grins, pulling the bowl closer and immediately gulping it down as if starved.

Caleb sits in silence as she eats. Yasha too sits in silence but it is not companionable or mutual. More a tense, entirely awkward silence in which Caleb feels that he should speak but suddenly cannot find the words to say.

“So…” Yasha says, tersley. “The weather is cold.”

“Yes.” Caleb says, quickly.

“Morning!” Beauregard interrupts, and Caleb is relentlessly thankful. The woman’s hair is somewhat mussed and a tankard of something acidic smelling is being nursed in one of her hands. She is tailed by Mollymauk, who is holding a similar tankard and the two of them quickly take up the last two available seats at the table.

“So, let’s talk bandits.” Beauregard announces, and she snaps her fingers with a sudden click that draws the attention of their entire table (and a few other curious looking patrons.)

“We have a plan?” Nott asks and Beauregard hushes her with a finger pressing to her lips in a mimed bid for silence.

“I am forming a plan, alongside Fjord, who is good at plans. We almost have half a plan already.” Beauregard nods, and she clears her throat to continue. “There are obviously the abandoned mining tunnels a day or so East, which have rumours of all kinds of fucked up shit going down. Kidnappings, robbery, murder. I reckon following the trail of crimes is always a good bet. But there are a few more things I think we should pick up on here first. People think some of them have a few split camps, maybe even one in the surrounding forests.”

“You think we should go trawling through the woods?” Yasha asks and Caleb finds himself in agreement with her scepticism. The trees stretch onward for miles, they could spend weeks tracing those lands and never see the same trunk twice.

“I think we should pick up some leads and have a poke around.” Beauregard insists and Mollymauk shrugs once, staring at the curve of his palms.

“I don’t think that it is necessarily a poor idea.” He says, mouth twisted as if the words have a bitter taste on his tongue. Beauregard easily ignores him.

“And what is that we seek, in these trees?” Caleb asks and Beauregard smiles at him, cheeks creasing with the effort.

“Allegedly this is the town they pick up supplies in. Holding camps, maybe, see if they have any documents or maps laying around that might gives us something to work with.” She recites.

“Fair.” Nott says, as she scrapes the bowl clean with her thumb. “Very fair.”

“But, we can lay out the details over supper or breakfast tomorrow because I am still sort of kind of buzzed.” Beauregard groans, and Caleb happens to notice the dark bags pooling beneath her eyes. Mollymauk offers a wayward smirk, almost in agreement, and then pats one of his large hands on her shoulder.

“Persevere.” He says and surprisingly, Yasha laughs.

“I am going to. I will persevere in my dreams for say, erm, seven more hours?” Beauregard tells them, and with that she shrugs off Mollymauk’s touch, not in unkindness, and heads towards the ancient staircase.

“Ah, I am one to be envious. If only I had a bed in which to sleep off this hangover.” Mollymauk sighs, mournful and casting a too pointed stare towards Nott.

“Suffer through your pain.” Nott grins, and then, because she is not truly a cold person, she dips her head in some sort of relent and looks more at Caleb than she does the other man. “Sleep when we’re not in it, I guess.”

“That takes away all the fun of it.” Mollymauk says simply, folding his hands together over the surface of the table.

“That wouldn’t even be your weirdest-” Yasha speaks abruptly, a miniature pull of her lips softening her face. Caleb considers the words and then scowls pointedly towards Mollymauk who is grinning in some sort of reminiscent glee.

“I know! To be fair we could never top _that_.” He says and Caleb has never been fond of being out of the loop, but this is entirely unfair because if the implication here is what he thinks it is he is not certain that he even wants to know. So is the terrible burden of his thirst for knowledge.

“Top.” Yasha snorts, slapping one of her mammoth hands over her mouth as if to subdue her grin. Mollymauk snickers openly, and Caleb watches the way his nose scrunches upwards and how he seems so young due to it.

“I’m not going to ask.” Nott tells them, shortly and Caleb is once more in absolute agreement. He never wants to know.

“I would gladly tell you.” Mollymauk offers, shoulders still shaking with his suppressed laughter.

“I’d honestly rather die, thanks.” Nott states and Caleb bites the inside of his lip to prevent his smile from spreading.

“I’ll tell you later.” Mollymauk whispers and Nott laughs suddenly, something drawn out entirely by surprise.

A truly companionable silence lingers then. Mollymauk blinking between them with a ruddy haze in his eye, Yasha stony and silent and watching Nott pointedly as if staring enough will conjure a conversation. Nott, who has finished her food and is now actively pretending she does not notice Yasha’s gaze, is drawing her eyes around the room. There is a tense pinch to her shoulders, the muscles drawn and uncomfortable.

“Well, off we go.” Mollymauk breaks the silence, and Caleb suppresses his flinch when he turns to find the man watching him. He too has bags beneath his eyes, dark blue and puffy, and Caleb is not a remarkably nurturing person but for a moment he wants to put the man to bed in an entirely platonic and soothing way.

“We go-?” Caleb mutters, squinting at him as if he had not spoken Common.

“We go to the market? Yes Caleb.” Mollymauk mimics his tone, drawing out his voice into something that is almost a guttural Zemnian accent. The pinch between his brows as he squints is almost parallel to Caleb’s own sour scowl.

“It is incredible how you can ask a question without it being a question.” Yasha says to him and Mollymauk very purposefully does not even cast a glance her way. Caleb ducks away from her before she has a chance to catch his eye.

“Oh, right.” Caleb says, he did agree to that, didn’t he? “Of course.”

“Okay.” Mollymauk smiles, and he stands almost in a rush, his cloaks flurrying around him like a ripple. Caleb casts a short glance to Nott, and presses his hand firmly to her shoulder in a familiar motion. They have a plethora of silent gestures and touches for situations when words are not safe, and a touch to the shoulder is as reassuring between them as it is the rest of the realm.

They step out into the chilled streets of Yggsdril with perhaps too much distance between them and with no words. The skies are downcast and shrouded with a swirling array of dark, angry clouds. Tall buildings line the cobbled street, grey stones and white paints holding them upright and proud. None of the buildings are ornate or particularly tall, in fact, the Inn seems to be the tallest structure Caleb can make out. The town is practical, then.

“Here.” Mollymauk says to him, and turns to walk in what seems to be an entirely random direction. Caleb follows in silence, peering around at the unfamiliar sights as they move. It is murky and barren in the town, everything is a droll shade of coal dust and sulphur, and as they pass a collection of rooted homes with black iron spiked fences, Caleb finds that he does not feel any fondness for the place.

The path they walk starts on a gentle decline, and the buildings seem to grow taller around them. They pass their first resident, a grey-bearded man with a shiny, pale bald spot atop his head. He does not look at them and Mollymauk says nothing in way of cheery greeting.

Eventually the pathway widens into a large courtyard, in which a stone brick well is centred. A few buildings have open doors faced towards the plaza and a few of them even have large, glass windows that Caleb squints at. There are a couple of winter dead trees, all spindly and drooping, and at their bases are few thick shrubs that are likely just weeds that no one has pulled.

He is just examining what appears to be an apothecary when Mollymauk’s fingers ghost across the back of his hand, calling his attention. He blinks towards the man who leans in close enough to appear that he is sharing a private comment. Caleb tries not to tense, reminds himself that Mollymauk’s touch is against his hand and that he will feel the sudden tension there if he does-

“It’s a bit shit here, I’ll be honest.” Mollymauk whispers to him and Caleb hums in amused agreement.

He has likely seen worse, but right now he struggles to recall a place more miserable.

“At least you don’t live here.” Caleb whispers back and Mollymauk snorts before pulling away to their strained distance once more.

Mollymauk draws back, eyes roaming around the various storefronts and their weathered, curious signposts. Eventually he turns towards a small, windowless building that could almost be mistaken as an extension of its neighbour. The worn wooden door is not even opened. Caleb glances towards the signpost, nailed directly into the stone blocks of the entrance way, and he smiles a little.

It reads: The Punchy Pyrite.

Caleb has absolutely no idea what they may sell inside, and that fact almost immediately endears him to the store. Mollymauk opens the door and it eases inwards silently, Caleb glances into the encompassing darkness, making out sprawling, cramped lines of oak shelves before he takes a step into the building.

It reeks of stale dust, pungent enough that he can almost feel it settling on his tongue, suffocating. Mollymauk steps in behind him, closing the door and casting them into a candle-lit abyss, like stepping into a warm pocket of shrouded darkness.  

Inside it is eerily silent, almost desolate and Caleb cannot bring himself to mind it as a few leather bound tomes catch his eye. Immediately he draws himself over to one of the shelves and plucks up the broadest book he can make out, a purple-ish coloured book with a few silvery markings painted down the spine.

“We’ve been here less than a moment and you have already found books.” Mollymauk laughs, almost in disbelief and Caleb scowls toward the man. When he finally does look at him properly he is startled, there is not malice there, only a soft curve of his mouth and the curious wandering of his eyes.

“They were right here.” Caleb says shortly, and turns his attentions back to the curiously light book in his hands. As he examines it he finds that there is no title, just a blank leather slate and he opens it to find the pages torn and hollowed out with a knife to manufacture it into some sort of container. Caleb traces the few visible words on a couple of the pages, catches glimpses of fantastic histories and magical beasts and a sour sort of disappointment seizes his chest. He wonders for a moment whether he could still learn from what little is left or if he could perhaps find whoever did this and throttle them.

Mollymauk peers over his shoulder for a moment, and it brings his chest flush up to Caleb’s shoulder. He tries not to cower away. He tries not to push back against the pressure there.

“Ah there you are!” A voice calls out and Caleb flinches, almost dropping the book as his hands spasm. Mollymauk grabs it before it falls, and he pushes it against Caleb’s chest to hold it steady.

“Hello.” Mollymauk says, almost cautious. Caleb turns to find a small Gnome woman walking down the short hall towards them. She is wearing dark linens and has her muddied hair pulled up and away from her face, which is weathered and dark.

“I see you’re looking at the books.” She says then, squinting suspiciously. Her tone is brash and voice croaky and deep. “So where’re you from then? Ain't nobody around here can read any of those.”

“They can’t read them because there are no pages.” Caleb bites out, finally taking the book from Mollymauk’s grasp.

“Hey now, some of ‘em do. That one is for the storage of private goods.” The woman tells them, and now she stops by their feet, hands propped on her hips to puff out her chest.

“That seems impractical.” Mollymauk says, shortly.

“Aye, mayhaps. Still, who in their right mind will steal a book? Best hiding place if you ask me.” She waves a hand in dismissal and Caleb very pointedly does not look at Mollymauk, who is laughing with a noisy huff of air through his nose.

“Do you have this with pages?” Mollymauk asks her then, circling an arm around Caleb to tap the book, flooding the store with a hollow thumping.

“No.” She says and Caleb frowns. He had assumed it to be the case, but the affirmation still upsets him. It had so much potential, too. He turns his gaze towards the other books, and sets the purple tome back onto the dusty shelf.

The next book he begins to leaf through is a recipe book, and while it is interesting to learn how much flour is actually required for a loaf of honey-oat bread, it is still nothing he could really utilise, unless he plans to open a bakery. Mollymauk breaks away from him to examine some of the other shelves, and the Gnome woman shadows him with an angry huff.

Nothing seems promising as he leafs through more of the books, they all in turn reveal themselves to be either ruined beyond use or utterly domestic. He finally turns to a small scroll with torn corners that is clasped closed with a length of frayed yarn. He slips the yarn free and keeps it wrapped around his wrist as he begins to look over the three pages held inside.

“So, the Punchy Pyrite is curious.” Mollymauk speaks, and Caleb hears a low, guttural huff that must have been the woman.

“Either that or the Fool’s Gold, but ain’t nobody going to spend coin in a store that insults ‘em.” She grumbles, and the annoyed inflection of her tone makes Caleb think that she may still be somewhat sour over that decision.

The scroll is promising, and Caleb immediately wants it. He cannot read the words, some strange collection of runes are scattered haphazardly across the parchment and he knows in his heart that he wants this scroll. He quickly bundles it together and tucks it beneath his arm, heading over to Mollymauk.

Mollymauk seems to be looking between a disarrayed amalgamation of carved wooden figures, most of which are purely ornamental. He can make out a few simple wolves and horses, small enough to fit into your palm, but there are painted people and miniature swords, too.

“Is that any good?” Mollymauk whispers to him, nodding to the scroll. Caleb clutches it tight in his hand, enough that his knuckles pale to a chalky white.

“I have no idea yet.” He says and Mollymauk glances up to meet his eye, blinks almost in surprise and smiles something ridiculously fond and warm.

“Incredible.” He says, and then he shakes his head and plucks up two of the carved figures at random, holding them out for Caleb to examine.

Both are well made and sturdy, clearly worn with use and age. The bear is missing one of his toes on his back paw and Caleb notes that the cedar-wood serpent has a jagged spelk where his tongue should be.

“The bear.” Caleb says and Mollymauk immediately sets the other figure down, soundly. He holds the bear up to appraise in the scarce candlelight, and Caleb watches how the shadows splay across the grain, painting the carving into something fierce.

“I mean, who doesn't like bears?” Mollymauk laughs, and flexing his hand in a way that draws Caleb’s eyes to the colourful ink serpent that resides there, he continues: “I should have gotten a bear.”

“The snake is nice.” Caleb says shorty, actively not looking at the man nor his incredibly attractive tattoos.

“Look, are you two gonna pay or what?” The woman barks, and Caleb blinks down at her to find her dark, honed gaze glaring directly back at him.

“Of course, just, the scroll and the… bear.” Caleb holds out the scroll to show the woman, although he does not relinquish his grip even slightly. There’s something to it, something primal and warm that flares against his fingertips.

“That’ll run ya around four gold.” She says and Caleb blinks down at her, scowling.

“How-” He starts and she snappishly cuts him off with a low, warning sound, something savage resounding deep in her throat.

“Four gold for the scroll, that carved thing you can have for free. Or, five silver for the carving alone and you can leave the scroll.” She bites out and Caleb frowns down at the leather of his boots.

“How much for the purple tome?” He asks and she laughs, crossing her arms across her broad chest.

“Two silver.” She says, and Caleb smooths his thumb over the worn paper of the apparently expensive scroll.

“Here.” Mollymauk interrupts, pressing six coins into the flat of the woman’s palm. “For the scroll, the tome and the bear.”

“There we are.” She says, clutching her hand around the coins. “I like you, sir, you know your business.”

“It is a pleasure.” Mollymauk nods, and he presses a hand against the middle of Caleb’s back to guide him out of the dim store. Caleb watches as Mollymauk manages to snatch up the ruined purple tome on their way out and he actively tries to catch up with the passing events.  Mollymauk bought him a book and scroll. Which means that he is now in debt.

Yet he has the scroll, and for that he conjures forth a grin, just for a moment, but enough for Mollymauk to smile in return.

“I could have gotten it for two silver.” Caleb hisses as they leave the building, stepping into the frigid air of the morning. Mollymauk is a comforting warmth at his side and if Caleb allows their shoulders to brush as they walk neither of them dare to comment on it. He is curiously fond of the bright shock of warmth that seeps through his bones at their contact.

“How exactly? By not paying?” Mollymauk asks, biting off a laugh and tucking the tome beneath the curl of his arm.

“It is called, uhm, skimming.” Caleb ducks his head in close and says the word low and slowly, does not quite catch Mollymauk’s gaze but stares at the bridge of his nose for long enough to know that the man is squinting curiously at him. His teeth flash into a smile.  

“Ah, so stealing.” Mollymauk says, smartly. Caleb scowls and shakes his head, gesturing a little excitedly ahead of him. His hands tend to move in sporadic, eager motions when he is talking about something he cares about and Caleb very much cares about his clever ploys. The thrill of adrenaline he gets from running a good heist is almost as sickeningly satisfying as conjuring some magical trinket. The abstract joy of holding something that he has created. The profound glee at having escaped the law.

His mother would be disappointed, he thinks.

“No. Skimming. It is like, erm, where you hide what you're going to buy, what you need, inside something cheaper. You still pay for it.” Caleb insists, miming the motions of folding some invisible object inside the hollows of a book. Just because they do not pay the exact amount does not mean that they have not paid, not entirely.  

“Yeah, no, that's just stealing.” Despite the words Mollymauk does not sound considerably annoyed at the concept, more so he seems almost weary. A hint of amusement curls his lips at the corners and Caleb smiles a little stiffly.

“You still pay.” Caleb insists, then he clicks his fingers once, savours the sting of his palm, and then he clicks them twice more. He considers his words, tries to string them together in a way that will make Mollymauk understand why it is necessary. “You just pay what you can instead of nothing. That is the better option.”

“So these things that you skim… skimmed?” Mollymauk asks, warbling off and then: “Skum?”

“Skimmed.” Caleb adds quickly, concealing the threat of a smile behind the curve of his palm.

“The stuff that you skimmed. What was it? Magical things?” He sounds fairly unconvinced, a curious lilt to his tone that could almost be in judgement.

“No, no, no.” Caleb shakes his head resolutely. “No, like food and things. You cannot steal magic items. There are always wards.” He says. Wards that burn and scorch your skin as if you were splashed with a vial of acid if you attempt to flee with merchandise without proper payment. Caleb does not dare steal from an enchanter again.

“You stole food?” Mollymauk snaps, voice resolutely bitter and Caleb does not allow himself to be chastised although the tone is more than enough to make him feel foolish.

“Ja. I needed it.” Is all that he says because it is true.

“Alright.” Mollymauk sighs, a strange distance has pulled his gaze into a glassy, uncertain look, the look of a man utterly consumed by his own mind. Then he blinks and the haze is cleansed away. “No more of that.” He says as if it were as simple as a word.

“No. I cannot promise that.” Caleb bites out immediately, staring intently at the uneven cobble of the pavement and he can feel the heavy weight of Mollymauk’s eyes boring into him.

“Caleb if you need food you ask for it. You come to me, or Jester or even Yasha. You can’t just go and steal because you feel you need it.” Mollymauk’s voice is a muffled, serpentine hiss that is far too ornery to truly be a whisper. The streets around them are void of much presence and those that walk amongst them are disinterested in the striking image of a tarnished man and his extravagant companion hosting a not so suppressed argument.

“You cannot just do that!” Caleb bites out and stuffs his hands deep into his torn pockets, pokes idly at the crude hole there and fiddles with the twine of his new scroll.

“Why not?” Mollymauk asks shortly and Caleb falters.

Why not, indeed? It was an offer as open and genuine as any he had heard from the man and although Caleb is typically convinced that most of his interactions outside of a conversation with Nott are a precarious tempting of fate, Mollymauk was yet to actually deceive him.

Well, he has not deceived him about anything that matters. His histories are still a contrived mess of interwoven lies, but Caleb is almost endeared to the fantasy of it. It is a fond reminder that a past is perhaps not too dreadfully defining of a person. He knows nearly nothing of Mollymauk, of who he was, and yet he is smitten all the same. It is warming to listen to Mollymauk discuss his fabricated past. It feels almost like there is hope.

Maybe it is the soulmate hormones, making them act so easy together. Everything Mollymauk said is so frustratingly reasonable that it infuriates him.

“Why would you buy me food?” Caleb asks instead because suddenly his tongue is dry and the forefront of his mind is focused so keenly on the fact that this is his soulmate. His soulmate who makes him smile and who buys him books and who does things for Nott. His chest feels flighty and eclipsed all at once.

“Because we are friends.” Mollymauk says it so simply, as if he genuinely believes it to be true.

“We are.” Caleb mimics and he is not sure about whether it is a lie. His doubt is likely an indicator that it is partly truth but he does not know if this is something he can commit to just yet.

“What was that thing you did? We’re like-” Mollymauk says and his voice is warm and heavy with his smile.

Mollymauk extends out his free hand and twists the fingers together a little crookedly, and Caleb feels himself smirk before he can properly restrain it. He holds up his own hand and crosses his index and middle fingers together, showing Mollymauk who quickly copies the gesture.

“Yeah! Yeah. This is us.” Mollymauk says and Caleb feels so incredibly foolish, stood in a strange street, shivering with cold and grinning at Mollymauk about some childish oath.

They are caught up in a terrible situation in a terrible place and Caleb is so incredibly happy.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! as always I cannot stress how much your feedback/kudos/interaction means to me. you're all incredible!!
> 
> in other news I tried to note it down and it seems like this should only have 5 more chapters to go, although this mess was only supposed to be 4 chapters anyway so we'll see how that goes! if you guys want to chat about this or CR with me in general you can find me on tumblr at @ereborslionheart

Yggsdril was once a town that rested on the banks of a plentiful river. It brought them commerce and resources and lavish, extravagant things. But that was years and years ago, times beyond almost reasonable comprehension, and at some point the ancient river’s mouth had sputtered and swallowed and then the river was gone. The water left and so there was Yggsdril, a great fishing port without her waters. 

Caleb touches the coarse paper with the pads of his fingers, traces the words and squints as he tries to piece together the histories. There are some pages missing here, so he turns onward.

So there is a boar. He is solitary and impossibly withered, with hair like wheat-grass and dark, wet eyes that are almost intelligent. His home is in the mountains, deep beneath the snows and the rocks, and his large tusks burrow and carve like spades. And - the page has ended, torn to nothing part-way down. 

“Is the book any good?” Nott asks him from her seat at the base of the bed. In her lap is Caleb’s worn overcoat, and she is pulling several tears closed with an array of coloured threads. The carved bear rests by her knee, dipping into the duvet where she had set it after Mollymauk had handed it to her.

“Uhm, yes. It is good but..” Caleb shrugs, staring distantly into the corner of the room. “It is not what I need. It is still interesting but not, not what I had expected.”

“That doesn’t mean that it’s bad.” Nott says shortly, and then she smirks. “Unless it reads like shit.”

“It has stories.” Caleb tells her, and taps the mangled pages to draw her attention to the purple tome. Nott glances towards it and the curve of a smile scarcely tugs at her lips. She has always been fond of stories.

“What sort of stories? Good ones? Sad ones? I don’t really like the sad ones that much.” She rambles, and returns to dexterously sewing Caleb’s clothes back together.  

So Caleb reads aloud to her, it is the least he can do in thanks for her keeping his coat together. He flips forward a few pages until he finds a spread that is not torn until two-thirds down and they learn about Byghonoa, a forest dwelling dragon whose wings were stricken from her by a storm, burned to ashy husks that protruded from her shoulders like dead, rotten trees. Caleb talks of her glassy, emerald eyes and Nott smiles as he recounts her rows of bloodied teeth. There is Yulthe the smith of magical weapons and Olgren the Orc who left his warband to become a cobbler. Astolni, a rather unremarkable rock lost deep in the Iron mines has an entire unscathed page of ramblings in dedication, and Caleb nor Nott can understand the significance. 

“So you mean to tell me that this stone, this  _ pebble,  _ has an entire journal?” Nott barks, her hands are folded neatly around the needle and thread in her lap. Caleb’s coat is disregarded and repaired in a ragged heap to her left.

“So the text says, yes. A diary of some importance, judging by the words.” Caleb murmurs, frowning at the page.

“But it is just a rock!” Nott laughs, and Caleb smiles alongside her wheezing disbelief. 

“Perhaps more.” Caleb suggests and Nott snorts.

“If it were something more people would already know about it, people would take it! Run in and grab it! Someone probably already has. I reckon that it’s sat on some old bastard’s mantelpiece right now.” She dismisses the story with such ease that Caleb almost effortlessly crushes the spike of anxiety the foreboding, looming words bring.  

“A-what-now is on a who-now’s shelf?” Fjord speaks up from their ajar doorway, peering in with a slight flush of colour to the slope of his cheeks, as if intruding is terribly difficult for him. 

“A rock.” Nott says, simply.

“Right. Now it ain’t an important rock, is it?” Fjord asks seriously, crossing his broad arms across his leather clad chest. A figure of patronising righteousness.

“I dunno, it wasn’t me who took it.” Nott shrugs and Fjord almost instantly slumps out of his intimidating stance, deflating all of his worry and nerves.

“Oh alright. Good, that’s good.” Fjord nods, smoothing one of his hands over his forehead. Caleb follows the motion and offers a strained little smile when he accidentally catches Fjord’s eye. He likes Fjord, the man is respectable and endearing and a sentinel for the Nein. He may not be their strongest, he is remarkably far from it, but Caleb can respect a driven hunger for knowledge, even if the man is looking in the wrong places. Caleb will just have to nudge him along the way. 

“Can we assist?” Caleb asks him, after a terse moment of uneasy silence. For he is still lingering in their doorway at noon and Caleb is still trying to read his book.

“Yeah, right. So we have like, a lead of sorts. Strange in all ‘cos Yasha actually picked it up from some gent at the bar.” Fjord tells them, and he is entirely immobile, as if a soldier reading a report. “So she pried some information from this guy and apparently there is an old millhouse, not two miles out of town that people reckon that the Bandits hold up in while they trade.”

“So Yasha told Beau, who told Jester, who actually told Molly before she told me, and now I’m telling you both. Which means that Beau has obviously already decided to head on down and check it out.” Fjord says, and then he still stands there, motionless with some expectant tilt of his head.

“And..?” Nott asks, curiously. Her lips are drawn into a thin line, pressed in thought and worry. Confrontation is not a safe thing, and Caleb does not doubt that she is concerned about potentially stumbling into the bandits. 

“Beau wants you to come along, Caleb.” Fjord says again, and he almost seems uncertain. “She thinks that a smaller group will get along faster, but she asked me to ask you.”

“But why me?” Caleb bites out, feeling his brows draw together into a pinch. 

“She trusts your judgement, apparently.” Fjord shrugs. 

That comment causes Caleb to pause, clamping his teeth together hard as he works to ignore the warm, eager feeling twisting in his gut. Beauregard trusts him, enough to ask after him. That’s unexpected. Caleb is surprised to discover that he likes it. 

So Caleb unfurls his legs from beneath himself as he stands, shaking out his left leg as it tingles unpleasantly with a numb flow of blood. He sets the book closed on the shabby desk in the corner of the room, enough to be an invitation to Nott, who enjoys reading when she is alone but does not know that Caleb knows this. 

“I won’t be long.” Caleb says, picking up his overcoat and shrugging it up and over his shoulders. The fit is still comfortable and the stitches hold sturdy as he fastens the buttons up. 

“You better not be.” Nott tells him, chastising and squinting in a way that alludes to her worry.

“Hey-” Caleb calls, catching her gaze. He smiles, a little too stretched out but a familiar smile between them, and brushes his coat down once. “Thank you, for this.”

“I wasn’t just going to leave you like that.” Nott shrugs, but her lips turn upwards at the corners. 

Caleb hates leaving Nott. Turning his back on her to follow Fjord out into the corridor sets his teeth on edge, grinding and brittle. Being without Nott is like being blinded so suddenly that he is left in shock by it, he never truly considers how close their bond is, how seamless they are together until he is utterly alone. His heart thuds and he swallows. It is almost frightening. 

Beauregard is already dressed when he spots her seated at one of the square tables. Her cloak is a muddied brown and fastened with a dull silver buckle at the shoulder. She catches his eye with a fond smile, still ducked in a quiet conversation with Yasha to her side. Yasha does not look to him, instead she is looking very sternly at her hands, folded together on the table as a touch of colour rises on her cheeks. 

Mollymauk is drinking. Caleb is not surprised. 

“Right, I’ve wrangled him for ya’.” Fjord calls out in greeting as they approach the table, he sets himself down heavily on Yasha’s other side and Beauregard grins broadly, a fierce, delighted thing.  

“I can’t say that you never do anything for me, can I?” She laughs, picking herself up from the seat. She collects her staff from where it had lay unattended on the floor and twists her fingers around it experimentally, finding a comfortable grip.

“Now I do expect y’all back in at least two hours, I don’t fancy having to wander out in the wilderness to collect you when you get your asses handed to you.” Fjord grouses, pinning them all with a roving, piercing glower. But a glare from Fjord, a weaponless and armourless Fjord, is not a particularly intimidating sight, so Caleb nods shortly and joins Beauregard at the door. 

“Don’t worry yourself, old man.” Beauregard says, shortly. Then, before Fjord can do more than sputter out a collection of low, enraged sounds, she jerks open the door and steps into the cobbled streets of Yggsdrill. 

Outside the weather has not let up. A shadowy downcast still encompasses the town in some drear sort of melancholy. Townsfolk are scarce and silent, and as the trio, lead on by Beauregard and Mollymauk, travel down the winding roads they do not receive a single greeting. Beauregard leads them in a similar silence, guiding them down a flight of ancient, stone-cut stairs that are brittle and chipped at their corners. They pass into some flatland that is home to more trees than buildings, tall crops of wheat and barley sprig up from the ashen dirt and after a good half-hour of their walking the stone path gives way to a crossroads. At this crossroad Caleb takes a moment to glance over his shoulder, to recount their steps and to take a second to breathe. In the distance he can make out the impression of the town they ventured from, solemn and almost sad in the valley. The buildings are an indistinguishable mess of grey colour, blurred so much that they almost give the impression of being just another mountain. 

“Hope your trousers are thick.” Beauregard says to them before she turns from the path entirely and takes one long, determined step into a tangled overgrowth of weeds. Caleb blinks after her for a moment, casts a glance down and is familiar enough with the long, flat blades of green to recognise stinging nettles and before he can prevent it he makes a sad, involuntary sound in his throat.

“Remember when you all insulted my boots?” Mollymauk muses as he steps deep into the cluster of knee-high brambles. Caleb swallows thickly and pushes onward after the two. 

“I never insulted them.” Beauregard bites out around a hiss as she works through the overgrowth and up into the treeline. “I said that they were tacky, which, hey, there’s nothing wrong with tacky! I mean, look at Caleb. He's like that and I still love him.” 

“I was not part of this conversation.” Caleb scolds, pointedly ignoring the way his shins are being berated. “Why are you making me part of this conversation?”

“Group participation is important for morale.” Mollymauk says, and although Caleb is glaring pointedly at the man’s back, he can hear the impression of his smile as it works his words into something warmer.

“Then let me be miserable and alone.” Caleb says. Up ahead, Beauregard laughs. 

“Caleb, really this whole angsty attitude needs to be reigned in a bit.” She says and although Caleb can hear the chime of her laughter and the mirth in her words he still feels himself frown. 

“Can we just walk, please?” He asks and their terse silence returns. 

It is not necessarily untrue, he thinks. Caleb has spent a great portion of this new life of his with no other company than Nott, and although he was content with that, with them, he knows that it likely has not done his social skills well. So Caleb has been obtuse and miserable with her, and Nott had accepted it because she really did not know anything other. Caleb was her most intimate understanding of how Humans worked, and how was she to know that he was a rather shoddy example? But now he is back among the (almost, somewhat) civilised and he needs to fix his self-depreciation, he needs to banish away his defensive attitude. He knows this, he just does not like being told it. 

Eventually the overgrowth subsides, although Caleb is certain that he has a rock in his boot and a limp blooming. Mollymauk is still trotting ahead, fully unscathed. 

There is a flat of land, with flecks of yellow-green grass that sprouts up sporadically, but mostly there is barren dirt. There are some deep grooves in the dirt and a few mounds of black ash that suggest that there may have once been carts and fire pits here, not so long ago. The building itself is not entirely remarkable. It is smaller than the Inn, and although the walls are tall it is only one floor. The walls are a pale sandy colour, unpainted and blemished with weathering from cruel winters. 

The door is left ajar and Beauregard takes this as invitation enough to approach. Mollymauk takes this a sign to draw one of his swords, the left that one he appears to favour the most and he holds it docile but taught in his grasp. Caleb steals a moment to follow the curve of the blade with his eye, to study the deadly sharp edge with a bitter hatred that seizes him almost unexpectedly. 

“It looks pretty deserted.” Beauregard murmurs, casting her voice low and steady. In the dead silence of the clearing her words carry like a whistle. 

“I doubt that it would be a problem, even if it weren’t.” Mollymauk whispers back, weaving his blade about in experimental little loops to emphasise his point. The motion draws Caleb back to the present, to watching Beauregard ease the door open with a soundless press of her hand. 

She enters first, and Mollymauk after, and then Caleb follows them both. In the intense silence he can feel a prickle of tension burn his shoulders, can feel the sickening weight of invisible, non-existent eyes watching him from the trees. 

“Wow.” Beauregard whispers, low in the darkened room. “This is actually pretty decent.”

The entire space is open plan and stuffed with a bizarre variety of mismatched furnishings. A desk is pushed against the far wall with a clutter of pelts and bones scattered across the surface. A dining table is angled to encompass a large amount of the room, and the chairs surrounding it only serve to make the space feel dangerously claustrophobic. It is decrepit and long since abandoned. Which makes the pristine table remarkably odd.

“There is no dust.” Caleb speaks suddenly, perhaps too loudly in oppose to their recent whispering because Mollymauk flinches as he turns to look at him. 

“Shit.” Beauregard bites out as she turns to look at him.

“People have been here recently, then.” Mollymauk surmises, glancing between them both. Caleb catches his eye, for just a brief moment, and he nods his affirmation. He pretends not to notice the barely-there, soft smile Mollymauk gives, though he catches it from the corner of his eye. It makes his stomach curdle in unease, so he turns his attentions back to Beauregard quickly.

Her eyes are drawn low and towards the corner of the shrouded room. There is a fleece of ram fur bundled and muddied with boot prints furled over the flooring. One of the long corners is curled upward to reveal two brass hinges embedded in the floorboards.

“Secret basements are always so wonderfully innocuous.” Mollymauk laughs and Beauregard shushes him with a hiss through her teeth. 

In two long steps she clears the room and kicks the sheepskin aside, revealing a large flat hatch. There is a thick bolted ring-handle on the panel and Beauregard thoughtlessly grasps it between both of her hands, yanking it abruptly up in a way that cascades a miasma of fresh dust up into the air. 

In the unassuming darkness Caleb squints down and makes out the vague impression of something solid. He blinks his ruddy eyes, almost pleading for them to adjust to the dark, and in this moment he casts a curious glance towards Mollymauk. The man is already looking at him, and in the moment he catches his eye something on his face shifts, as if he is attuned to Caleb’s own thoughts, because he looks from Caleb to the basement to Caleb once more.

“It is a staircase.” He says, simply. “Although from the angle I cannot tell how far down it goes.”

“Lead on, then.” Beauregard declares as Caleb nods minutely in thanks. 

Mollymauk shrugs soundlessly and steps down into the formless darkness as he begins his descent down the apparent stairs. Caleb takes a deep, grounding breath, squeezes his palms into tight fists and he follows after. 

The stairway leading into the dingy basement is cobbled stone and damp enough to be slick, causing Caleb to press a hand against the cold walls as he works his way into the encompassing darkness. His vision is mostly blocked by the man ahead of him and so he squints very harshly at the floor, works on keeping his boots grounded and himself upright. Behind him he hears Beauregard hiss as she slips on the cracked stairs and her hand is heavy on his shoulder as she steadies herself. 

It is a short walk and after fifteen or so steps the basement levels out into a crude, hollowed out passageway that is held up by thick, oak beams that bisect the tunnel and are layered with a remarkable amount of slate paste. Compact dirt is packed at their bases, keeping them sentinel and upright. The tunnel is clearly a recent addition to the home and as Caleb peers along it in the scant sunlight that pours in from the cellar above him, he can tell that they will need to duck their heads low as they move forward. 

A string of dancing lights nip at his fingertips with excited, primal energy as he summons the enchantment and he watches as the pygmy lights rove along the low ceiling like moths, buzzing and hovering in wait. 

The tunnel is far less pleasant illuminated. He can make out the impression of deep grooves in the ground below them. The earth turns abruptly from stone into compact dirt and thin trails have been parted like a river bed, as if someone were dragging their heels. Dark patches of red cling to some of the beams like sap and Caleb feels his stomach curdle at the familiar crimson. 

Alone and closed at the opposite end of the brief tunnel there is a large, wooden door that has a polished iron bolt lock. A small iron slate rests about two-thirds up the body and Caleb recognises it as the kind of peer-hole that some prison cells have embedded. Sometimes unbolting the door is too much of an effort, even for the paid guard. 

Mollymauk has not taken a step forward yet but Caleb imagines that he is considering whether moving forward would be of any worth at all. 

Beauregard decides for them as she eases passed, head tilted to the left as to avoid braining herself on the ceiling. She clears a large portion of the walk before falling to a sharp stop and staring intently at the wall, a laugh bubbles up from her and she looks back to them, pointing eagerly at the wall.

“Nice.” She says, and Caleb steps around Mollymauk to investigate. 

Against the stark dirt someone has taken the time to paint ‘FUCK THE EMPIRE’ in large, emboldened letters. 

“Nice.” Caleb agrees, feeling a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. 

Dirt crinkles beneath Mollymauk’s feet as he falls in behind them and a huff of air is his only response to the graffiti. Caleb has always been fond, truthfully, of envisioning someone taking the time and effort necessary to pull even the most minimalist piece off. 

“Do you think this is rigged?” Beauregard asks abruptly, gesturing towards the looming door. It looks rather unremarkable as far as Caleb’s experience with doors goes but assuming that all unremarkable things are safe by association is not clever. 

“It could very well be.” Mollymauk says, helpfully. 

Caleb follows the shape of the door closely, the deep grooves of the polished wood and the gleaming blackness of the lock. The wood is peeled and paled at the base, as if it has been clawed savagely. The base of his skull throbs unpleasantly at his concentration, tense enough that his neck become stiff but it seems that there is nothing inherently wrong with the door. 

It appears to be just a door.

“There is no trace of magics or anything obviously mechanical.” He perks up. He does not like the tension that searching for magics can leave him with, his neck is terse and it hurts to tilt his head as he watches Beauregard approach the door hesitantly. 

“Maybe we should ask Nott-” Caleb says as Beauregard reaches out and unbolts the lock. The sound of the mechanism groans like some derelict construction awakening from slumber, creaking and low.  

“If you want to walk to the Inn and  _ all _ the way back, you’re welcome to it.” Beauregard scoffs and Caleb holds his mouth closed, pursed. 

The hinges are surprisingly well kept and do not groan as the door is knocked open by Beauregard’s kick. Although it does rattle in its frame, it holds fast remarkably well. It is a door designed to withstand immense force and Caleb feels an acidic burn, low in his gut. 

A plume of dust showers down as the behemoth door opens, but the feeble light of his cantrip manages to worm into the room, flooding even the marred corners with some warm light. 

Caleb feels nauseous at the sight of it. 

Even as Beauregard hesitantly steps inside onto the hard, bricked flooring, he does not move. Even as Mollymauk follows behind her with far less trepidation in the regal way he holds himself, eyes restless as he takes in the harrowing sight. Caleb watches them watch the room and he does not move. 

He thinks, a little hysterically, that were he asked to run in this moment he would find himself paralysed. Thankfully all he has to do is look and he discovers that although he despises it he cannot stop himself once he starts drinking in the details. 

It is a sorrowfully small room with a taller ceiling than the passage, it has compact dirt walls that are marred with the same crimson stains and deep, sharp groves as if clawed at. A horrendous, copper stench clings to the air and damp pools of  _ something _ have culminated in the corners, festering and wretched. A single wooden chair sits in the centre of the room and parallel nail marks bite angry grooves into the arm rests, it is stained an array of colours and none of them are bright. 

The more Caleb looks the more he feels himself growing restless. His shoulders are pulled taut and he struggles to take a simple breath without a clenching, terrible pressure against his throat. 

He knows his panic, is familiar with the suffocating fear, but that does not mean that he knows how to stop it when it is upon him. 

Beside the chair, unrested and laying pathetically on the floor there is a wooden table with a cascade of metal utensils scattered about it like deluge. Caleb counts a great many knives of all sizes: there are big ones for cutting, sharp ones for carving, long ones for getting in deep, for getting to your  _ bones,  _ scalpels for your teeth, serrated ones for hacking pieces of you off and curved ones that leave scars that will never, ever heal just right. There are other things too, needles and a cracked basin, burned out coals and ash and tarnished rags, he counts out three different pliers, a large slab of iron that curves at the end.  

“What even is all of this, then?” Beauregard huffs, she has circled the room twice now and stares curiously at another closed door that sits parallel to the one they entered. 

Caleb opens his mouth to answer, takes a shaking breath that leaves him unsatisfied and suffocating still and he chokes a little on his too dry tongue when he finally wrestles the words free. 

“It’s a cell.” He says simply and his head feels hollow. He needs to get out. Away from the sights and the smells and memories. 

“What sort of a cell hooks you up with a chair?” Beauregard laughs, toeing at the furniture lightly so that it creaks noisily against the stones. 

Caleb feels that sound in his bones. 

“Gods.” He says and swallows uselessly, choking on nothing. “I need to…” His heart pounds out of a normal rhythm and he twists his hands pathetically together. “Sorry.”

His cantrips burst like glass panes, pitching them into an almost darkness bar for one of the determined lights which flickers and hovers in the room like a beacon, keeping them illuminated. 

Nobody says a word, or perhaps they do and Caleb does not hear them over the immense rush of blood in his ears. Caleb leaves every shred of his waning constitution with that light as he stumbles uselessly along the hall, slipping on the stairs and catching himself hard against his palm, it comes away wet with something and Caleb finds that he is shaking. He darts around the furnishings and out into the bleak sunlight, pressing his back against the heavy building and gasps for air like a drowned man resurfaced. 

It is bitter and cold and it does not feel like enough. 

Distantly he is aware that his breathing is feeble and wheezing, that his shoulders are shaking in an effort to keep him from retching and that his eyes feel damp and his stomach hollow with panic. 

Footsteps creak through the derelict home and Caleb swallows against his anger. The last thing he needs right now is someone to see him in this state, hurting and useless, like a  _ child. _

“Tell me what happened.” Mollymauk asks him and Caleb takes a damp, shuddering breath. It is so incredibly easy to do whatever the man asks of him and so Caleb stares at the floor and he finds his voice.

“It’s, that, that, room. That place.” He bites out, voice thick with some emotion. 

“What about that place? It is just a cell, Caleb.” Mollymauk tells him in a tone low and soft, meant just for him to hear. Mollymauk has not moved closer, he stands opposite Caleb and is watching him as if a wounded animal. He is desperate to help but is mindful of being bitten. 

“It’s  _ not. _ ” Caleb shakes his head, feels the pathetic sting of tears and swallows hard. “It is not just a cell. It is a cell where men make men talk. Interrogators and disgusting people, vile people.” 

He flinches when Mollymauk’s hand reaches for him, shies his head away and closes his eyes, hides himself away enough that the warm touch against his cheek startles a gasp from him. Mollymauk’s hands are big and calloused, brutal and murderous and so incredibly soft against him. 

Caleb presses his face against the touch as if he could hide himself away in that tenderness. 

Each breath he takes is shuddering and damp, as if he were about to cry but nothing escapes the dampness of his eyes. Mollymauk’s thumb is tracing soft patterns against his cheek and Caleb does not miss the small, broken sound he makes when Mollymauk hushes him. 

“I just, I can’t.” Caleb murmurs into the space between them, partly muffled from where his lips are pressed to Mollymauk’s palm. “Not again. It is dark and dangerous and I  _ can’t _ .” 

“You’re okay. We’re okay.” Mollymauk tells him with the same quiet assurance he always speaks with, a warm whisper that Caleb wants to bury in and hide until he does not hurt quite so much.

“They used to.. to get you to speak. About things that were happening and sometimes it was easy, so so easy to give them what they wanted. Sometimes they would, hm, ask questions that you did not know so well, would draw the answer out instead.” Caleb knows that he is saying too much, knows that he is sputtering like some wounded child but he feels so overwhelmingly safe right now and he would talk for an eternity if it meant keeping Mollymauk’s hand on him. 

“The pain only made it worse, made you forget things you knew and make up things that you didn’t. Some of them didn’t even ask questions.” Caleb shakes with an inhale, feels the tremulous pause in Mollymauk’s soothing motions before he continues. “That was not the worst.”

“Caleb-” Mollymauk speaks, voice suddenly heavy and Caleb ignores it, tilts his head so that the man’s palm smooths across his cheek like a caress. 

“It is worse if you are taken down for something you did not do. No matter how deep they cut or what they break you  _ never _ have the answer they need. They just keep going and going until you’re gone.” Caleb swallows around the acidic burn of bile and his nose stings with some defeated twist. 

As much as Caleb had been dragged from cell to cell, sporting bruises and breaks and horrific wounds he was never taken for something that he could not answer. He was undeniably easy to break. Caleb would lay awake at night consumed by abstract terror. It would only ever be a matter of time before he was asked something he could not answer and could not lie convincingly enough about. One day their knives would cut too deep, their hits break him too far, leave him some irreparable shell to slink around the cellhouse like a phantom. It was only ever a matter of time.

“You’re here, Caleb.” Mollymauk tells him softly, almost a croon if not for the anger in his voice. Caleb glances to him, finds his face downcast and pinched with an almost murderous expression but his hand is still so incredibly gentle as his finger traces the shell of Caleb’s ear.

“We’re away from the guard and the cellar and the rooms.” Mollymauk says and his eyes find Caleb’s, watches him with some soft, concerned gaze that creases his face. 

“I can’t-” Caleb repeats, uselessly. He raises a hand for a moment, considers reaching out and grabbing Mollymauk’s robes in some sort of desperate, pathetic attempt at closeness but he instead presses it against his sternum, feels his heart drum an angry mantra.

“We won’t.  _ You _ won’t.” Mollymauk tells him lowly. His other hand sets itself on Caleb’s shoulder, heavy and squeezing just slightly, enough that Caleb is sure that Mollymauk can feel him shake.

Mollymauk smiles at him, a remarkably soft curl of his lips that creases his eyes with mirth and carves gentle dimples into his cheeks. 

“You never have to experience that again, not with us. Not with the Nein or with Nott. Not with me.” Mollymauk whispers and Caleb heaves a sigh that would herald tears if he were not blinking them back furiously. It feels almost too much like a promise and oh, that is such a dangerous thing between them. 

“You cannot know that.” Caleb bites out and forces himself to twist his face away, to stare resolutely at the man and to bite back the yearning to fold against him, chasing the warmth and safety there.

“Caleb, I would run my swords through the entire Empire and all of their interrogators if it meant keeping you here.” Mollymauk’s voice is low and thick with an emotion that Caleb cannot name, being so startled by the words. He blinks and stares firmly at the trees over Mollymauk’s shoulder. 

“ Scheisse.” Caleb bites out harshly, frustrated and angry and exhausted. Some tormented part of him wants to believe those words, to rely on the safety of them, to read into the promise and intent behind them. Instead he shrugs Mollymauk’s hand off of it’s perch on his shoulder and he very pointedly does not look at the man as he speaks. 

“I will stay here.” He says, swallowing too hard. 

“Alright.” Mollymauk relents, quiet and low. Caleb does not watch him leave, instead he listens to the sound of his retreating footsteps crunching against the snow and then descending into the cellar once more. 

In the dreary sunlight Caleb tips his face towards the sky and works on correcting his breathing. He does not once think about Mollymauk and his terrible, maddening devotion. He does not think about the way it makes his toes curl in his boots and his heart thump excitedly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! this chapter has some pretty serious focus on injury and gore so if you're not comfortable with that I'd recommend skipping this chapter!
> 
> also, consistent chapter length? I don't know her.

Fifteen minutes later finds Beauregard and Mollymauk noisily making their way back up from the basement.

“Caleb!” Beauregard calls out, an eager lilt to her voice that piques Caleb’s interest, enough to draw his gaze from the treeline to watch the open doorway expectantly.

The pair stumble out of the doorway, Beauregard barrelling forward with a smile and a slight jog to her step. Mollymauk is close behind and there is a creaking _thump!_ as his tail slams into the door frame, he pays the noise no mind, instead gesturing excitedly to Beauregard’s clasped hands - or more likely, the roll of parchment she is squeezing between her fists.

For a moment the appearance of this is enough to quell his anxiety, enough to stay the rising nausea in his gut.

“So, the side room, right? It turned out to be a storage room, barrels and desks and flagons and this-” Beauregard wiggles the papers to emphasise her point and the sheets whisper together noisily, like a stack of jittering playing cards in the breeze. “I think it’s a trade report, or a briefing, it looks like it’s addressed, too.”

“You think?” Caleb asks, shortly. He risks a furtive glance to meet her gaze, and although her eyes are bright and wet with her fervid energy she frowns, just a little guiltily.

“It’s not exactly in Common.” Mollymauk tells him, folding his arms loosely across his chest. Caleb watches his slender fingers squeeze his biceps tight, drumming an unknown mantra against his shirt.

“Do you know what it is?” Caleb asks them, returning his gaze to stare very firmly at the glimmering sheen of Beauregard’s cloak buckle. He can almost distinguish his own reflection in the clasp, distorted and dreary and dark.

“Of course we do that’s why we’re asking you instead of heading back to the Inn.” Beauregard snaps and Caleb works very valiantly to refrain from rolling his eyes, he feels a painful twinge, just above his temple, as if not doing so is actually painful.

“I think she means to ask you, politely, to translate it for us.” Mollymauk intervenes, and then, tilting his head in a way to draw Caleb’s eye, he smiles perhaps too tenderly in a voice that is very soft he says “Please.”

“Alright.” Caleb says shortly and takes the paper from Beauregard. It is slightly water damaged and curls at the corner, as if kept as a scroll. He straightens it out to inspect the cursive writing and strange, conjoined vowels. It is strange, he realises, to find something written in Zemnian when he is so far from his home.

“There are delivery instructions-” He starts, squinting at the words and reading through the unkempt, hurried ink. Most of it is a disarrayed list of general items, sweetmeats and salt, vegetables, linen, water pouches, but as he continues on he can make out more specific request, measurements and items that Caleb only knows because Nott keeps a healthy store of them herself. At the base of the page, scribbled in a tiny, curling hand he reads:

“Deliver to the Harrowed Stream Fishmonger.”

“Where in the fuck is that?” Beauregard asks, prying the papers from Caleb as if his translation would suddenly grant her the ability to read the words there.

“Probably in Harrowed Stream.” Mollymauk says and Caleb smiles a little wryly.

“Really now? I hadn’t considered-” Beauregard snaps, but her lips are curving upward into a smile despite her feigned annoyance. Caleb opens his mouth to speak, feeling for a sparse moment that everything is alright.

“Oi!” A guttural voice calls, and immediately the illusion is shattered. Caleb falters and he feels a flash of smarmy sweat freeze to his skin. He watches Beauregard react, headstrong and quick as a whip as she pockets the papers and raises her staff, holding it taught between her dark fingers.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The voice insists, and Caleb raises his head to find a large, burly sort of man advancing on them from the treeline. He is built like an unfinished golem, thick arms and a too-small head rested on broad, meaty shoulders. His eyes are like two lumps of void, black coal squinting towards them.

“Just leaving, actually!” Mollymauk calls out, voice light and decidedly care-free. “We are heading along to Yggsdrill and it seems we took a wrong turn.”

The man does not speak, instead he raises his goliath hands and Caleb takes note of the old woodcutter axe in his grip, head dull and red with rust. Mollymauk’s smile falters and he raises his hands placatingly.

“Right, this has been lovely. We’ll be off now, it was nice seeing you-” He warbles off, placing a firm hand on Caleb’s shoulder and tangling another in the back of Beauregard’s cloak. He eases them backwards, towards the lavender and nettle brush they had picked their way through.

“Ney, I don’t think so.” A voice starts from behind them and Caleb barely has time to flinch, scarcely manages to recognise the accent before something piercing and sharp and _wrong_ carves into his shoulder.

He stumbles forward, managing to trip into Beauregard who steadies him with a hand on his chest. His ears are ringing and pulsing with the rushing sound of water, like he has dipped his head into a river. He places his hand over the screaming ache on his shoulder he pulls it away wet with crimson blood.

“Alright, you giant assholes.” Beauregard snarls, and her voice is loud and so distorted, as if she is speaking from many miles away. Caleb steps backwards, watching as she turns to engage the accented man who struck at him. He has a crooked nose that cracks with a sickening pop as Beauregard slams her fist across his face.

He stumbles backward, tripping over his too-large boots, and drops the bloodied dagger in the dirt. Beauregard follows him, slamming down her staff across his head.

But there is another, Caleb thinks suddenly, ignoring the searing pain of his shoulder and turning to find the large, axe-wielding man rearing back to bury that axe deep into Beauregard's back.

Caleb does not for a moment hesitate, instead he finds some warm, carnal energy and weaves it into something material, and a second before the axe makes contact he summons a slightly translucent barrier. The axe shudders against the barrier as it hits, and Caleb feels some curious twinge in his gut as the creation falters at the impact. So he breathes deep and he soothes it and he holds it steady.

The large man snarls, sinewy spittle dripping from his scabbed lips. His head turns to Caleb and Caleb does not move, holding his hand perfectly still as he maintains the protective enchantment above his friend, gritting his teeth around the way his body quakes with pain.

An eerie, guttural voice croaks then, and Caleb, although rendered terrifyingly frozen by the noise, is comforted to recognise it as Mollymauk’s distorted infernal hissing. Then, not at all unexpectedly, Mollymauk runs the man through with his swords. It is difficult to remember that Mollymauk is still a powerful man, it is often shadowed by Yasha and Jester’s ridiculous feats of raw strength but watching Mollymauk puncture the man easily and bend him to his knees as he carves him like an animal is a cruel reminder.

Caleb drops the shield without hesitation.

“Shit, are you alright?” Mollymauk breathes, leaving his swords embedded in the slumped form of the man and instead crowding closer to Caleb.

“Yes.” Caleb says shortly despite the fact that he is not.

Mollymauk looks at him for a long moment, his eyes searching Caleb’s expression in quick, fluttering movements before he offers a small, strained smile.

“Shit.” Beauregard growls and Caleb turns to find her hovering over the crumpled form of the smaller man. Her face is damp with sweat and she looks at Caleb for a long moment before dropping her gaze to the floor.

“Drinks?” Mollymauk asks them tensely, and in the uncomfortable silence Beauregard chuckles.

\-------

Caleb is in agony.

The dagger has nicked his flesh in an arc, carving deep. It was like filleting a cod, imperfect if you can’t hear the scrape of the teeth of your blade across the bone. And Caleb had heard the blade bite into something, had felt the flesh tear almost too intimately, he hadn’t even know that he had such attuned nerves running so deep.

Apparently he does, if the way he grits his teeth until his jaw rattles is any indication.

They walk in a solemn silence as they return to the town, lamplight flooding the streets and casting abnormal, distorted shadows high across the white washed walls. Caleb knows that he is lagging, that each press of his foot against the cobble sends sickening vibrations through his bones, causing the wound to shriek in pain. Caleb has always been absent in the group, and neither notice his distance.

The vision of the Pit Pony Inn fills him almost with a longing, something that causes him to fizzle with an anticipated energy. So long as he can make it into the dingy building with its crooked deck, the sooner he can burrow himself away and lick his wounds. He can almost envision it, the smell of sandalwood and too much varnish, oregano and week old hearth ash.

As Beauregard pushes the main door open they find the vision of their companions already settled at one of the tables. Caleb’s eyes almost instinctively turn to Nott and he has to restrain himself from running to her side, he does not know what makes him want to chase that curious comfort, to curl into the warm space beside her and be tucked away, close and warm. A distant memory teases him, one of youth and comfort, a memory of what may be his mother but could easily be Nott herself.

The group falls inside and curls silently around one of the large, circular tables. Nott hovers to his left, eyes hooded and narrowed towards him although her expression is concealed by the painted porcelain of her mask.

With a weary sigh Caleb finally takes a seat in the hearth room of the Pit Pony Inn, the fire is stoked and erratic, casting the room in a smouldering heat, as if he has stepped into a dim pocket of hot air. He works to breathe, controlled inhales through his nose and a mute exhale between slightly opened lips.

Everything is painfully tense, like his flesh has been flayed and shrunk down and now he’s trying to squeeze back into it again. He is aware of a jitter creeping up his right arm, his fingers quaking in spasms and he crushes them desperately in his free hand.

“I’ll get us all a drink, I think we have earned one.” Mollymauk speaks up, slapping an open palm against the grain of the table in order to punctuate the statement.

Caleb flinches at the sound, bites down on a pained groan that the movement tore from his throat. Mollymauk has bought them enough drinks in a gaudy enough ensemble of taverns and breweries to know what their preferences are, Mollymauk stands, does not ask them to name their own poison, and Yasha shadows him to the bar.

Caleb watches them retreat with a forlorn sort of distance dampening his judgement, it takes him perhaps a few moments too long to rein in his staring, so he shifts his gaze downwards and he watches his hands wind together anxiously, knots his fingers like a tapestry.

“Well that a was a right fucking mess.” Beauregard announces and Caleb makes a startled noise of agreement low in his throat. She is picking at the linen table covering, consumed by some thought. Her knuckles are bloody and swollen red. Then, in the tepid silence of the room she recounts their venture. She describes the old house and the basement, although she gratuitously leaves out Caleb’s skittering fear, she describes their attackers and the note. Once she returns to her silence everyone shares a similar, weary look.

“It could have been worse.” Jester says, nonchalant, although her lips are pinched and eyes downcast. “You could have died.”

“That would likely throw a pinch in the potion.” Nott agrees, and she drums her fingers against the tabletop in some distorted mantra, a tattoo that Caleb is familiar with. It is the same nervous habit he had adopted as a youth and it is strange to see it bestowed onto Nott.

“I think I’d rather that right now.” Beauregard huffs, rolling her shoulder slowly, as if the muscles are protesting the movement.

“Hey now.” Fjord grouses, resting a large hand on Beauregard’s back, patting her uneasily before leaving the limb there to rest, spanning between her shoulder blades.

A barbed back and forth bounces between them, something that was formless devolving into a shower of words even less comprehensive. But they are smiling about it, smirking as they call names like children and Caleb does not smile because moving hurts terribly.

“Where is the dragon?” Mollymauk says by way of greeting and Jester snorts.“You all looked so dreadfully miserable that I decided something warm wouldn’t go amiss.” He is laden down with tankards and bowls of something tart smelling and steaming. Yasha follows him up, equally burdened with an array of chipped wooden utensils.

They set them against the table with heavy thunks, working around them like the hands of a clock and Caleb stares resolutely at his ghastly pale hands as Mollymauk falls to his side. He is presented with a bowl of sticky oats that are too pale to be properly cooked, the tankard is half full with something deep and golden, like sap, and Caleb hates that he is familiar with the brew.

“Danke-” He murmurs and falls silent as a slice of thick, crusty bread is pressed insistently against his hands. He risks a furtive glance from behind the overhang of his unkempt hair and finds Mollymauk watching him with a curious look, something in his gaze is narrowed, enough so that Caleb grasps the bread without a word. He nods and seizes up as the movement floods his veins with a blazing agony.

For a dreadful moment Mollymauk raises a hand as if to touch him, the calloused warmth of his palm reaches towards Caleb’s shoulder. Beneath his coat his skin is flushed with blood.

“Don’t.” Caleb says lowly, tilting his head to break their gaze, it is a painful jerk of his head, and he grits his teeth to swallow down the pain. “Do not touch me.”

“Caleb-” Mollymauk says softly, his hand floundering for a moment before he curls his fingers and drops it to his side.

“I swear to the Gods, Mollymauk.” Caleb warns him, the threat of a captured animal.

Mollymauk does not speak, he clears his throat awkwardly, clenches his hand where it rests by his side and walks on to drop a bowl of oats and a glass of whisky by Nott, who quickly snatches the beverage and swallows it back in two long gulps.

An idle chatter picks up amongst them as they eat, punctuated with the clatter of utensils scraping the rim of bowls and an erratic waving of cutlery.

“I’m telling you now, we’re onto them.” Beauregard says, cheeks bloated with where she is disinterestedly chewing her food. “We just need to find out where this Harrowed Stream is and we have a pretty significant lead.”

“They were desperate.” Mollymauk agrees, thumb working anxious runes against the grooves of his tankard. There is a chip by the handle and he is burrowing his nail into it.

“You probably walked into their territory.” Nott speaks and then stuffs a palm of gruel into her mouth. She eats erratically, as if always on the cusp of starvation and Caleb is usually very much the same, if not more reserved about it. Having spent days on end with nothing but stolen sips of water and a few wayward scraps rooted out of the gutters, he has learned to eat the food that he is given.

Usually he has no problem emptying a bowl, but now with every nerve searing and his head throbbing he can barely bring himself to stir the spoon absently about. He breaks off a chunk of the bread, barely the size of a button, and twists it about in his fingers. He presses it into his mouth and bites down slowly.

A tender burn blossoms across his shoulder, worming beneath his skin up to his neck where it convulses and suffocates. He feels distantly cold, his toes and fingertips just barely numb despite the encompassing warmth of the hearth. He chews with difficulty, as if he has a broken tooth and it takes him three minutes of chewing on scarcely anything before he has the courage to swallow.

He chokes and the motion pulls his shoulder, drawing his face into a grimace. With a deep breath he runs a hand over his clammy face, brushes the sweat away from his cheek and passes the remainder of the chunky bread wordlessly to Nott.

She shreds it in her talons, pockets a few pieces and eats the rest with a silent nod of thanks.

It is not unusual for Caleb to avoid eating after a conflict, his anxiety always seizes his appetite first, and although she is not fond of his self imposed starvation she has learned that arguing against it only makes Caleb worse.

She will bide her time until breakfast, he assumes, and the salvaged bread will make a slightly stale reappearance on his plate, perhaps in his pocket, maybe even in one of his boots if she is so inclined.

Caleb sighs deeply, he has a long night ahead if the prickling heat flushing his shoulders is anything to judge by. He will have to check the wound, tend to it as best he can alone. He has always been poor at healing magics, no matter how many books he poured himself over he would never be able to replicate the handwork, the runes would come out wrong and the wound would always fester.

“I’m sleepy.” Jester says sullenly, head resting heavily against her palm as she swills the final dregs of her meal about.

“I think we should go hit the hay.” Beauregard agrees, rubbing kneading circles against the ball joint of her shoulder. Jester glances towards her and offers a subdued smile.

“I am good at massages, I will fix you up.” She says and Beauregard grins at her.

Yasha stands, piling up their empty dishes. She returns them to the frazzled looking barkeep who offers a nod of thanks. As Yasha passes their table she presses a soft kiss to the back of Mollymauk’s head. Beauregard, Jester and Yasha throw waves of farewell as they ascend the creaky staircase and Caleb is struck with the overwhelming realisation that without the girls, their band is not overly inclined to talk.

He stares at his brew, has yet to actually take a sip, and sighs.

“Alright.” He says, glancing towards Nott who looks at him curiously, eyes narrowed into slits and her mask hanging just below her chin, enough that the impression of her frown is clearly visible.

“I am going to… erm. I am going.” He tells her, lowly, not enough that his voice does not carry, not enough that he cannot feel Fjord and Mollymauk watching him suspiciously.

“Are you alright, Caleb?” Fjord asks him abruptly, tone a slow drag of concern that Caleb does not know how to react to. While he dislikes being the focus of any attention he can at least appreciate that his well being is considered.

“Well enough.” He nods and, after softly running his hand over Nott’s shoulder, he climbs the stairs to his room. It is difficult, and each move is excruciating agony, enough that he has to burden the wall with his weight, hauling himself up with the banister. His shoulder shrieks and his head throbs and he would sob if he were alone.

It feels as if an eternity has passed as he slinks down the hall and into his room, he presses the door closed behind him and waits until the bolt creaks into place before he sheds his overcoat. It is difficult, working it off and he has to ease it as if peeling off a stuck bandage. He is shaking as he bundles the coat, and he drops it onto the low set chair, throwing up a plume of dust and debris.

He turns his attentions to the oil lamp and steadies his breathing, works on ignoring the suffocating pressure on his chest, as if he is being crushed by some invisible presence.

His fingers tremble as he works the mechanism, and after a few sparks of flint a pygmy flame bursts into life. It is strange, it is almost entirely indistinguishable from a flame he could have conjured but if feels almost frigid in comparison. Perhaps it is because he has no love for it.

Caleb could grow to become a very old man and he would never cease to love his own creations.

His books fall away with minimal protest and he rests them atop his overcoat. It leaves him slightly chilly, in his tattered and damp undershirt, once an ivory white it has grown tarnished and beige with wear. It is likely too far gone now, but Caleb does not ponder it. He does not have time to be miserable over something so insignificant right now although his nose does twitch with a probing desire to cry. Like a child.

“We are okay.” He tells himself and he takes the lamp from the desk and sets it on the floor. He sits beside it, cross legged and terrified. At first he moves to pull the shirt over his head but he is struck with an electric jolt of pain that leaves him gasping and so he flexes his hands, counts to three and tries to turn his head to peer over his shoulder instead.

The light is dim but he can make out the stark crimson seeping across his shoulder. He looks at it almost transfixed, the disoriented way you look at something fantastical, almost as if you cannot believe it to be real.

He grits his teeth against the pain and twists an arm behind his back, grasping the shirt and pulling it down. He hisses at the burst of new pain, the blood had congealed and stuck the fabric to his skin and moving it has upset the cut even more. With the clothing pulled free Caleb feels overwhelmed with nausea. It is a short wound, only a few inches long across the meat of his shoulder, but it is deep and the skin frayed. It will need to be stitched, if he cannot find the magics to force his skin to mend.

He cannot ask Jester, she will know the scars there, she is already familiar with the scarred canvas of Mollymauk’s back and Caleb does not doubt for a moment that she would see him and just _know_. He cannot risk Fjord or Beauregard or Gods forbid, Yasha, less any of them are familiar with the wounds that mar him.

Nott is an option, he thinks, although she is terrible at stitching skin and the last time she had tended him with a needle had almost been his death through infection.

So he closes his eyes and relishes the darkness there. There is a tension resting across his forehead and he scowls as he tries to conjure forth some healing touch, anything at all to even dampen the pain. Eventually a weak, pleasant swarm of energy threads about his fingertips and Caleb focuses on it, pours energy that he does not have to spare into the warmth of it.

Hesitantly he opens his eyes and finds a peculiar golden glow encompassing his fingers, a maternal, primal sort of warmth that Caleb wants to fold into. It is the best he can do, in this field.

Swallowing around the ever pressing doubts of his ability he raises his hand and presses the fingers against the wound.

His scream is broken only by his free hand clamping over his mouth.

A flash of scorching agony showered down his back, biting furiously into his already raw skin. He drops his shaking hand uselessly away from his shoulder, the spell discharged and a heady, fizzling energy swarming his head.

Tears prickle at his eyes and Caleb presses his hand more firmly over his mouth, feeling the impression of his teeth against his palm.

He does not know how he fucked it up, but that was far from the spell he intended. Healing magics are hard and Caleb has no taste for them.

The room stinks of charred flesh and cedar smoke. Eventually Caleb manages to swallow the damp from his throat and he drops his shaking hands to his lap, twisting them anxiously. He does not like the oncoming events, he doesn't like how his head is foggy and burning.

He crawls to where his pack is tucked beneath the large straw bed and he pulls the worn leather sack into his lap. It is scarce and it does not take him long to pull out a fabric satchel, resting it aside as he pushes the bag away. With a single hand he flips open the fabric, once held by a copper buckle that has since been pried off and sold for a drink a few cities ago. There are only two needles left, one hooked like a talon and another stubby and military straight. He has a quarter spool of thread left and Caleb spins the silvery strands between his fingers. It is not medical, it is thin and wispy and stolen from a tailor because Caleb had wanted it. It gets the job done though and he snatches it free from the bag alongside the smaller needle.

He is loathe to admit how difficult it is to summon even a spark to his index finger, but soon he has a billowing, angry flame that he runs the needle through until it is hot to the touch. Caleb has wallowed in the dingy long enough to know how to kill illness as it stems, and he has been stitched up enough without proper precautions to fear what will happen if he does not sterilise his needle. He loops the thread through and pulls it taught. The room is silent all but for the spitting of the oil lamp and his heavy breathing. So, he stretches his arm behind him again, needle pinched between two fingers and he brings his other hand overtop his head to probe the wound, meeting himself in the middle.

Perhaps he should have fetched Nott, he thinks as he nips the skin together and pierces the flesh with the needle. He is blinded for the moment by a rolling flash of pain, and he breathes through it shallowly. His hand is shaking and his head is throbbing and his nose stings with the desperate, childish want to cry.

He pushes his shirt collar down again and pulls the thread the rest of the way through.

There is a sudden rapping at the door and Caleb flinches, gasping at the pain of movement and he pulls his hands to his lap. He looks at his hands, the one he had probed the wound with is slick with blood and he wipes it away across the front of his shirt.

Initially he wants to ignore the knock, he holds himself still and works to settle his troubled breathing but the knocking is insistent and Caleb manages to stumble to his feet. He casts a glance down and notes how his front is marred with blood, how the needle is digging into his back as his shirt falls into place.

“A moment.” He hisses out, unsure if he even heard it himself, he thinks that maybe he just heard the ghost of the words. With difficulty he stumbles to the door, leg stiff and his vision clouded and blotted. His fingers hook around the handle, clinging to it until his knuckles are porcelain white, and he pulls it open enough to show his face and nothing more.

It is strange, to find that he is not surprised to see Mollymauk standing there.

Mollymauk is leaning heavily on one leg, clearly favouring it and Caleb squints at him. His face is drawn into something thunderous, soft features somehow honed into an expression that Caleb is certain has been the last vision of many unfortunate beasts.

“You look a mess.” Mollymauk croaks out, a stammer lacing his words into a concerned muddle. He leans closer, squinting, and if he were to press the space between them any further he would be barging into the room.

Caleb works his mouth to speak, chokes on the swell of his tongue as it sticks against his too dry teeth and then rests more of his weight against the wall. His shoulders are shaking and the movement is pulling the thread taught. Caleb wants to cry, he wants Mollymauk to leave and he is also so very desperate for the man to stay, because some idiotic thought is almost insistent that he can fix this.

“I am just tired.” Caleb manages to say, head tucked low to his chest, staring at the intricate leathers of Mollymauk’s boots.

“I know that you are.” Mollymauk tells him, voice subdued and warm and Caleb very nearly crumples into the tenderness there. “I know.” He is whispering now and Caleb ignores the way those words are almost enough to summon a weary smile.

“I also know that you reek of blood.” Mollymauk says then and Caleb is startled by the words, blinks absently and then opens his mouth to argue.

“I don’t-” He says and Mollymauk scoffs, drawing Caleb’s brows into an angry scowl.

“I can smell it on you.” Mollymauk insists, low and so very final. Caleb could argue but it would be like throwing himself against a brick wall, painful and pointless. “Your blood is very distinct, it is hard to mistake.”

Caleb does not respond, he feels his lips twist into some sort of grimace that bares his teeth. He had not considered that Mollymauk’s attunement with blood ran so deep, he wonders whether blood has personal accents or whether the man is being purposefully theatrical.

“I am fixing it.” Caleb tells him and dares not to move .

“Can I come in?” Mollymauk asks of him instead, and Caleb finds that even considering the notion of turning the man away seems enough to make his senses reel. He wants this closeness, he craves a comforting touch after so much agony and the seared flesh of his shoulder would perhaps ache a little less if he had a distraction.

This is stupid, he tells himself as he allows Mollymauk a nod, falling back into the room and leaving the door agape as an invitation to follow, the only indication of his assent.

It is incredibly stupid, but Caleb is not clever in the better sense of the word. He is book smart and calculated, but he has never been bold enough to properly isolate himself, even if necessary. Being alone is to be secure, but being alone is reminiscent of cells and the dank, reeking dungeons and Caleb does not want to be alone again.

It is terrifying.

“Gods, what have you done?” Mollymauk asks him as he steps into the shrouded room. He eases the door closed with his boot and the room is scarcely illuminated by the lamp, casting harsh shadows across the floorboards. Mollymauk’s trinkets glimmer in the lamplight and Caleb watches them radiate ethereal like a beacon.

He imagines that he is not something much to behold. He is shaking and damp with sweat, blood staining a thick streak across his shirt.

“We need to get Jester-” Mollymauk says and Caleb shakes his head once before the pain becomes too fierce, he winces and hums around the pained groan, eases it into something less than it was.

“No, no, no.” He whispers, and he would be fiddling with something in his anxiety if he knew that the movement would not be crippling.

“Why not?” Mollymauk starts, an underlying annoyance sharpening his words into something dangerous.

“It is being handled.” Caleb says and Mollymauk abruptly falls silent, enough so that Caleb glances towards him and finds his face softened into something lax with pity.  
  
“Let me help, at least.” Mollymauk asks of him and Caleb already knows that he would agree to anything. “I cannot bring myself to leave you in this state, knowing my luck you’ll die and Nott will have my head on a pike on the front deck.” It is his attempt at a joke but Caleb is scared to attempt a laugh.

The words dissipate into the air between them and Caleb scowls. Truthfully it may not be such a bad solution, out of everyone in their party Mollymauk is likely the man to be the most unfamiliar with his own back. Caleb himself could not even begin to imagine what his back looks like if he were to be asked but he could easily list of the intricacies of Mollymauk’s tattoos. He likes to think that is due to them being enticing to the eye, that the entire Nein are just as equally familiar, that he has not been staring again.

“Okay.” Caleb whispers and turns away from the man, slouching in relatively the same spot he had occupied on the floor previously. He sits a little heavily and the thump sends an aching reverberation running up his spine. He exhales heavily through his nose and does not cry.

“All of this for a little cut.” Mollymauk says to him, and the rustle of his cloak is the only indication Caleb has that the man has knelt behind him. Closer now, his voice is warm, “To think that I thought that I had a flare for the melodramatics.”

Caleb holds frightfully still, subdues his breathing so that he can listen as Mollymauk settles behind him, a few inches of space between them. Without any warning fingers find their rest against the nape of Caleb’s neck and he struggles not to press back against them.

“I’m going to have to move your shirt.” Mollymauk tells him and Caleb hums low in his throat.

“Leave it on.” He says and the fingers against his neck begin to rub against him gently, intricate, nonsense patterns that rasp against his clammy skin.

Mollymauk’s free hand comes to rest on the joint of his shoulder, it is heavy and warm and Caleb shudders involuntarily at the touch. The thumb smooths over his shoulder before the man hooks a finger around the neck of his shirt and pulls down, enough to expose the weeping wound.

“What were you doing?” Mollymauk asks and Caleb clenches his eyes shut, feels the weight of the needle disappear. Mollymauk must have lifted it, and Caleb’s breath catches in his throat as he feels the pull of the thread against the tender skin.

“Gods. I’m going to have to- to, okay, I’m going to have to start this again. You’ve missed half of the left side, which you would know if you had though to use a mirror, by the way.” Mollymauk’s tone is strained, as if he wants to be cruel but cannot find the anger to fuel him. “And that is easy enough, because you did not knot the thread, this would have come straight back out.”

“Then I am lucky that you are here.” Caleb whispers and it feels almost like admitting to the truth. The fingers against his neck still for a moment before they curl around him like necklace, fingers coming to rest against his jugular and the thumb rubbing soothing motions against his nape. The impression of the man’s rings are cold and firm and Caleb appreciates having something to focus on.

“Did you sterilise this?” Mollymauk asks, and the feeling of the needle being removed is enough to cause his stomach to curdle.

“I did.” Caleb bites out, hands balling into fists. “I am not an idiot.”

“That is highly debatable, right now.” Mollymauk teases, and he passes Caleb the needle to hold. It is damp with blood and the silver thread is matted and frayed. Mollymauk shifts, and all at once his presence disappears, Caleb holds still and listens to the man’s boots scrape against the wooden boards for a few moments until he returns, closer this time, enough that the small of Caleb’s back is pressed against the man’s hip.

“I am just going to clean you up.” Mollymauk tells him. Something cold and damp presses against his neck, enough that a few errant drops carve a path against the wound, and Caleb recalls the water pitcher that rests on the old crooked desk. Caleb hisses and Mollymauk makes a low, mournful sound in his throat.

“I am sorry. Just be brave.” He says and Caleb focuses on his breathing and not the intimate flush of embarrassment at the words. The water is working its way across his shoulders now, rasping across the uninjured shoulder methodically, and Caleb does not flinch when Mollymauk replaces his hand there, squeezing tight.

“Your shirt is perhaps too far gone. I can loan you one, or Fjord may have a tunic if you are so inclined.” Mollymauk tells him and Caleb had assumed that his shirt was a goner.

“I will try not to weep.” Caleb says and behind him Mollymauk huffs out a chuckle.

The minutes pass by in a warm silence, Caleb is drooping with the exhaustion of the day, placid and content, if he were able to he would easily fold into Mollymauk’s lap and just sleep until the pains left him be. Eventually the cloth becomes less present, dabbing gently against his injured shoulder until Mollymauk pulls away entirely.

“Do you do this often?” Mollymauk asks and Caleb is lost for a moment, he stares into the abyssal darkness of his eyelids and realises that the man can see some of his scars.

His neck must seem a mutilated mess, a lattice of puckered scars that Mollymauk must somehow recognise, seeing as he put them there.

“More so when I was young.” Caleb says, quietly. He hears a soft squelch as Mollymauk squeezes the cloth tight, curling his fist to wring it out before he sets it down on the floor.

“I struggle to imagine you as a brawler, if you’d forgive my judgement.” Mollymauk’s voice always becomes a touch warm when is smiling, as if the upward turn of his lips soothes his words into something softer.

“You just do not know me well.” Caleb supplies and he passes the needle easily when Mollymauk reaches out a hand to beckon for it.

He feels all at once the heated pressure of the man’s hands, nipping his skin together and the biting, instant push of the needle.

“I think that is one of our biggest problems, collectively. We all have so much shit going on that we don’t have time to sit down and grab a pint- or we do, but we don’t really talk over that pint.” Mollymauk’s voice is pressing and warm and Caleb focuses so keenly on his words, on the way he sometimes draws out his esses, and he very dutifully ignores the press of his hands and the burn of the needle.

“I’m keen on the lot of you, quite honestly, and it feels ridiculous saying that because when you reflect on it I barely know anything about most of you at all.” Mollymauk continues his movements, and his breath is a ticklish whisper where it unsettles the thin hairs at the base of Caleb’s skull.

“What would you like to know?” Caleb asks rather than saying anything remotely intelligent at all.

Mollymauk is silent for a tense moment, in which his hands continue their careful ministrations and Caleb is left to wonder whether he spoke at all, whether he should repeat himself or check his pulse to ensure that he is still actually breathing. He has two fingers ready to press to his wrist when Mollymauk sighs and shifts uneasily, drawing his attention back.

“They say that every scar has a good story behind it, or an interesting one at the very least. I gather from looking at you that you must have a pretty decent novel at this point.” He says and Caleb is almost inclined to smile, instead he folds his hands together and stares at the floor. He is not even privy to the story behind many of his most disfiguring wounds.

“Less fascinating than you would hope.” Caleb murmurs instead and he hisses through his teeth as Mollymauk jerks the thread tight, fumbling with it for a moment in which Caleb can envision him knotting the end into a tight ball. His shoulder is inflamed with warmth and suddenly Mollymauk’s hands rest gently on both of his biceps, rubbing soothing little circles with his thumbs.  
  
“What about this one?” Mollymauk asks of him, drumming his right index finger against Caleb’s arm. Caleb follows the motion and notices a thin white tendril peeking out from the cuff of his sleeve. Without much restraint he smiles, a excited flutter bubbling in his throat. Out of every mangled line on his body it is so incredibly fantastic that Mollymauk would pick out something that was actually Caleb’s own.

“Do not laugh at me.” Caleb begins, feeling the uncanny, almost melancholic warmth of reflecting on a distant childhood memory summons, like a shroud of momentary stillness. He does not wait for a response before he continues, encouraged in part by Mollymauk’s drumming fingers against his arms. “I was thirteen, and Frumpkin was new to me. I remember he used to wait until my mother was not at home and my father was gone and he would sneak into the kitchens. He knows, knew, very well that he was not allowed in there but he still went, because he is just a cat. So away he went for his smoked hams, and I hear some dreadful shriek, like he is being murdered, and I find him atop one of the very tall shelves, stuck. I reached for him but he decided to use me as some hopping stone to get back down to the floor. But he does not have a very good balance and so he used his claws for a grip. He tore my arm open like a knife.”

Caleb shrugs, a little ruddy in the cheeks, to have divulged such a domestic story. Still, he remembers it almost fondly, as if he can still smell his mother’s pantry and feel the spring-warm air of his home during his last few happy years.

“So it is a cat scratch?” Mollymauk laughs, and then he giggles, soft and bright. He pulls his hands away from Caleb suddenly and stands, taking with him the water basin and washcloth and bloodied, dirty needle.

“Do you expect me to believe that your hands are a result of paper cuts?” He asks as he sets the items heavily onto the desk which groans under the weight.

“Some of them, yes.” Caleb nods, because it is true, especially of his fingers.

“Incredible.” Mollymauk laughs, and leaves it so delightfully brief. Caleb thinks very hard on that word, he bites on his lower lip as he dwells on it, perhaps, just for a moment, thinking that Mollymauk meant it about him. He shakes the thought from his head before it can root itself, convincing himself with a certain assurance that, if it were anything at all, the comment was sarcastic.

Mollymauk has shifted to the bed now and he is peeling back the linen sheet, making space enough for a figure to lay down. Then, once he has fluffed the pillow with a few abrasive slaps of his open-hand, he turns to Caleb and approaches.

“Come on then, let’s sleep this one off, shall we?” He asks, and holds out a hand expectantly. Caleb blinks at it, a sudden bubbly giddiness seizing his throat. Would he notice the scarring if he took that bare hand with his own? Would he realise how the wounds thread together like some mirrored latticework? Caleb, finding the idea ridiculous and hilarious all in one considers it for a very serious moment before he pushes the hand aside and stumbles to his feet unassisted. Mollymauk still presses a hand against his uninjured side, firmly keeping him on his feet.

He is light headed, and the journey from his upright position to being face-down on the mattress is one he has no recollection of. He was somewhat aware of his feet moving as if miles and miles away from his body, as if his legs were two lengths of jittery plastic that he had no control of.

“What about you?” Caleb mumbles, mouth pressed firmly to the pillow and his words slurred. Mollymauk is hovering above him, working the duvet up to cover his lower back, trapping a pocket of warm air in with him.

“What about me?” Mollymauk asks, blinking his large, pupil-less eyes down at him. At first Caleb had found those eyes slightly unnerving, being unable to tell where his gaze wandered. But now there is some curious comfort there, like staring into nebulous pools in the stars, bright and expanding and warm.

“I told you about one of mine.” Caleb insists, and he catches Mollymauk’s eye just in time to see the dawning realisation there, how his brow inches upwards for just moment and how his mouth curls into a gentle ‘oh’.

“Alright then, though I warn you that many of my injuries are not as terribly interesting as a cat scratch.” Mollymauk smiles at him, subdued and perhaps a modicum self-conscious, if the uneasy flicker of his eyes is anything to judge by. He holds out his arms for Caleb to assess his bare forearms and the v-shape of his low hanging shirt. Caleb does not need to appraise him however, he is already so intimately familiar with what he intends to ask. Instead he feigns an act of assessing the man, roving his eyes about at random. Eventually he narrows his eyes on a long, curved cut that healed a dull lilac over Mollymauk’s forearm. He was twenty-three when it appeared, and it had been excruciatingly deep, deep enough that Caleb had clutched it between his shaking hand and wheezed. He can still recall the sting of it, the way he had watched his skin part like leafing open a book, the pale white of his skin and the disgusting pink meat inside.

“Oh, that?” Mollymauk asks, shortly. He blinks at it for a moment and shrugs.

“It’s just from one of swords.” He says simply, looking from the scar to Caleb’s face, as if searching for some sort of reaction other than disappointment.

“Oh.” Caleb sighs. He had not particularly expected much more, but some eager, weightless thing has seized his gut and makes him feel giddy all over again. It is his relief at the closure, of finally understanding one of those dreadful, painful things, and it is his delight at being permitted to know, to ask about it so openly. Perhaps, given ample time, he will be permitted to know the stories of all of his scars. 

“Thank you.” He says. _For this, for taking care of me, for letting me know,_ he does not say, but thinks it rather fondly. 

“It’s alright.” Mollymauk whispers, low and perhaps too intimate, considering they are alone in the quaint room that stinks of cedar wood and blood.

“Stay off that side, I’ll fetch Nott up for you.” Mollymauk tells him, pressing a hand gently against the middle of Caleb’s back in some parting gesture. He turns, heading for the door and Caleb follows him from the corner of his eye until the man leaves his peripheral and instead he listens to the soft thunk as the door is closed behind him.

Caleb stares at the old, rotten boards of his room and he swallows around a pressing lump in his throat. He is not entirely certain when he is drawn into sleep, but he is certain that it was with the thought of Mollymauk and his gentle hands at the forefront of his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fight! fight! fight! kiss! kiss! kiss!
> 
> oi mates remember when I said that this was gonna be self indulgent as all heck? I didn't lie, not one bit.

Caleb wakes up warm. It is not something that he is particularly familiar with, being content and comfortable and safe, but he is not adverse to laying steady and feigning sleep for as long as the tranquil feeling lingers. There is a probing touch against his scalp, rhythmic grooves of pulling fingers and his nostrils burn at the stench of silver and iron.

“I just don’t reckon that it’s any of your business.” Nott is whispering, and Caleb feels the vibrations of her chest against his cheek. He holds himself steady, pliant by the soothing ministrations of her hand and the maternal warmth of her embrace.

“None of my business? It should be everyone’s business, it should be Jester’s business-” Mollymauk speaks, and Caleb feels his gut swoop with frigid dread. The peaceful veil of half-content slumber has been peeled away to reveal the dreadful, nauseating reality. His palms grow abruptly cold, as if he is clutching fistfuls of ice.

His shoulder is sore.

“Look, Caleb is a very isolated person. If he wants to handle these things himself he’s more than capable of it.” Nott says, very coolly in a voice that is much softer than Caleb anticipated.

“Right, of course, and the bloodbath last night was clearly just a bit of a bump in the road of a plan that was otherwise going swimmingly.” Mollymauk spits, voice pitched with contempt that makes Caleb’s toes curl in worry. He had not seemed so annoyed last night, but perhaps after an evening of reflecting on it he has realised how idiotic Caleb must be for attempting something so brash. It must, not for the first time, have made him face how pathetic he was.

Caleb swallows around his dry, scratchy throat. He feels Nott’s hand twitch for a moment against the tangles of his hair, one talon precariously tracing over the soft skin of his temple.

“He can do these things.” Nott murmurs and Caleb feels the motion of her brazen swallow. “I taught him how to stitch all sorts of things, he’s clever.”

“This is unbelievable.” Mollymauk scoffs and Caleb feels the back of his arms prickle with goose flesh, cold and clammy. “It’s like you don’t even care that he’s like this-”

Nott huffs a laugh, it is not her typical chuckle, something warm that Caleb often enjoys much more than the humour that elicited it. Instead the sound is a cruel, bitter thing. Her hand stills atop his crown for a moment, palm smoothing back the clumped hair from his forehead.

“Look, I understand that you underestimate me here, so I am going to make it clear for you: I love Caleb, he is everything that I have and everything else I have is because of him. If you ever for a moment think that I don’t care about him - that I wouldn’t do _anything_ for him - then you need to rethink the situation.” Nott speaks in a tone that Caleb has not heard for a very long time, a wheezing, low tone she used when they were still two strangers in a cinder block cell house.

“Nott, I-” Mollymauk starts and Nott must snarl because the man falls abruptly silent, the clink of his jaw resounding in the silent room.

“If you ever bring him back to me injured again, Mollymauk, I will grind your teeth to dust.” She finishes, and Caleb for just a moment hears the rushing of his blood pulse in his ears. There is something promising in her tone, a familiar hiss that causes Caleb’s chest to become heavy like led.

_Boltstrike_. He thinks, and instantly flounders because he doesn’t want that, not anymore, perhaps never at all.

There is a palpable silence then, thick like smog and Caleb suffocates on it. Gently, feigning a tepid breaching of slumber, he flexes the fingers of his left hand, wiggling them enough to draw Nott’s attention. Then, making sure to be mindful of his tender shoulder, he rolls his neck and furrows his brow.

“Hey, morning.” She says tenderly, her hand smooths across his hair for a lingering moment before she fully pulls it away, tucking it neatly to her side. “Do you need a drink?” She asks then, and Caleb is startled for a moment by just how much he adores her.

“I’m alright.” He replies although his throat is dry and his mouth groggy. He stares at the folds of the duvet, watching where her mottled hand rests by his side and he very purposefully does not glance towards Mollymauk. Mollymauk watches on silently, drumming his fingers in an abrasive tattoo against his thigh, almost expectantly.

For a moment the tension is almost smothering and Caleb despises them for it. It is not fair, he thinks bitterly, that he is so tired and so desperate for a moment of peace. Here, in their curious little respite room, are the two people in the world who are his own. One, who he loves dearly and for who he has done a great many bad things, and then another who has been assigned to him by the relatively unfamiliar Unknown, who he probably fancies far more than a rational man in his situation would ever.

He looks between them, the strained pull of their frowns, the terse, down turned curve of their lips and he sighs. If all that it ever amounts to is conflict how can he ever expect them to work out?

And that’s the crux of it, truly; more than anything Caleb wants them to work.

“Thank you.” Caleb tells them both in a voice that is very small. He is not entirely certain what he is thanking them for, just that he hopes the words will temper them into something easier together.

“How is your arm?” Mollymauk asks, hunched over in the chair. His hair is matted and clumped in knots around the seamless base of his horns. Caleb notes the pallid hue of his skin, the dark, blue bruises that shrink his eyes to crimson flecks. He looks like shit.

“Yeah, good.” Caleb lies, ignoring the bitter ache. “Have you slept?”

“Yes.” Mollymauk replies, perhaps a little too quickly.

“I have a new shirt for you.” Nott pitches in, her gangling limbs clawing at the covers until she sheds them all, scuttling to her bags and beginning to noisily dig through them. The empty space she once occupied deflates in her absence, the heat of her touch turning bitter with chill.

Nott, who had almost been laying as a prone division between Caleb and Mollymauk, clucks her tongue in annoyance. Caleb raises a hand to pick at the tatted threads of his tunic, twisting one of the spindley laces on the collar around his finger self-consciously. Mollymauk opens his mouth as if to speak, revealing just for a moment the needle-fine points of his teeth before he flickers his eyes to Nott and closes his mouth again soundly. Caleb swallows down his waning protest, dismissing the abstract want to hear the man’s voice.

Without considering why he is so inclined to do so he catches Mollymauk’s gaze and offers a wry sort of smile that likely appears to be more a grimace. Mollymauk smiles back, a tender, soft curl of his mouth.

Oh. Caleb thinks as he watches it appear, tracing his eyes across the round curve of his cheek, noting the obtrusive, endearing dimple that burrows there. His chest bubbles with an encompassing warmth and Caleb is for a moment entirely consumed by an overwhelming rush of sudden calm, shedding layers of tumultuous stress and nausea.

He is inclined, in that curious moment, to say something incredibly foolish.

“Found it!” Nott declares, trotting over with the clinking of talons on varnished wood. She has a balled up wad of crimson fabric swaddled to her chest, and Caleb blinks at it, inspecting, for it appears to be almost new.

“Is that my shirt!?” Mollymauk barks, rocking forwards to reach out a hand for the bundle. Nott easily manoeuvres under his grasp, handing the shirt to Caleb who runs it between his fingers. It is soft and silken and likely does not keep the biting cold at bay.

It is also definitely one of Mollymauk’s shirts.

“I found it.” Nott supplies, which is very pointedly not denial of the accusation.

“When did you take this? I thought that I lost it after that whole ordeal with Kylre-” Mollymauk says, and although his tone is collected there is a minor tension to his jaw which suggests that he is not entirely happy about it.

“That’s when I found it.” Nott responds, tersely.

“Alright, let me get this straight: you found my shirt, in my tent, in my trunk, and decided to take it?” Mollymauk asks, drawing the vowels out in a very slow, almost monotonous way.

Nott blinks at him, her large ghastly eyes like a pair of luminous beacons, something feral in their hue. Then, in a way that is entirely warm she smiles, something she learned from Caleb and is therefore not very good at.

“Yes.”

“I- I honestly- right, okay.” Mollymauk stammers, mouth dropping open in a way that is entirely defeated and in a manner that Caleb recalls being scolded for doing as a child. “Fuck it, right, okay. Have you taken any of my other things that I should know about?”

“No.” Nott replies in a very mild tone. She treats Caleb to a long, lingering look that he recognises as her caught-in-the-lamplight-lying-through-my-teeth expression, he can tell because she has to swallow very hard to restrain her brazen smile.

Mollymauk blinks at her, his face reserved, his void eyes entirely blank. Then, he pats his thigh and stands.

“Alrighty then.” He sing-songs, tone chipper and entirely false. Caleb glances from him to Nott and then stares a little helplessly at the shirt bundled in his hands.

“I’ll give you both a little bit of privacy to get dressed.” He relents, grinning at Nott as he exits the room. For a moment Caleb holds dreadfully still, listening to the retreating sound of his boots clatter down the staircase.

“If that asshole liked his socks he should keep a better eye on them.” Nott says indignantly, scratching at one of her long, elk-like ears.

“His socks?” Caleb prompts, raising a brow at her in question. He is not very good at raising a single brow, so it is more a concerned scrunching of his forehead, but it relays his point because Nott laughs.

“They’re woollen!” Nott gasps, as if that in any way excuses theft.

“Fair enough.” Caleb nods and works his ruined shirt over his head. His shoulder is touchy and warm, enough so that he strains to work the sleeve off properly. Caleb is accustomed to the dreadful ache of injury but he still grits his teeth as he moves. He crumples his blood soaked shirt in his lap and Nott soundlessly snatches it away, stowing it deep into one of the many abyssal pouches of her bag.

Caleb does not ask about what she would want with such an item. 

Mollymauk’s tunic is soft to touch, enough that it almost tickles his skin as he shrugs it on. The thin fabric is wispy and the cool air seeps through to prickle his skin. Caleb likes soft things, he truly does.

“Do you plan on eating today?” Nott asks in a tone that is as subtle as she can muster: dreadfully direct.

“Of course.” Caleb nods and she turns to him then, unsure and smiling in the way that he taught her to.

Making their way down to The Pit Pony parlour finds Beauregard and Jester excitedly caught up in a game of slap-hands. Fjord is watching a little uneasily from the bar, mouth pressed into a very thin line that paints him with the expression of a man who very seriously regrets his life choices. Caleb has never emphasised with him quite as strongly than in the moment their eyes meet across the low lit room and there is the sharp whack of Jester smacking Beauregard across the forearm.

“Caleb.” Yasha nods at him from where she is sat at their table, one of her hands is insistently tugging at one of Mollymauk’s earrings while he is lazily attempting to swat her hand away. “Nott.”

“Hello Yasha.” Nott calls back, words muffled behind the cover of her mask. She trots over to sit by Yasha, leaving Caleb standing quite stupidly in the middle of the room. He can see the old landlady pottering about behind the bar and she must be senile or incredibly adaptable because she no longer spares them even a wayward glance.

“Hey, Caleb.” Beauregard says, quite suddenly in his ear. Caleb flinches and notes that the sharp sound of slapping and giggling is no longer ringing out. Beauregard is standing before him, mouth twisted sourly downwards and her bruised hands resting on her hips. She seems for a moment the patron of disappointed mothers everywhere. Caleb does not meet her eye, ducking his head low.

“So apparently you got stabbed yesterday, what the fuck, man?” She asks, and Caleb is overwhelmed by the prickling heat of embarrassment burning across his neck.

“I-” He swallows, hard. “It will not happen again.”

“You’re right it won’t, Gods. And hey, even if it does? You tell people these things, alright?” She rants, voice pitching dangerously towards a shout. Caleb can feel her strain on the words, and he glances up for just a moment to catch her eye.

“It was handled.” Caleb insists, feeling some confusing emotion churn in his gut, like he has drank too much whiskey. He does not really understand her anger, he had handled it himself, it was no longer her problem. That was the best he could have done and yet she still seems so incredibly annoyed.

“Caleb, if you’re hurt you have to tell someone. What would have happened if you just dropped down dead on the way home? If he had poisoned you or-” Beauregard stammers for a moment, cutting herself off with a growl.

“Sorry.” Caleb murmurs and holds very still. Before them, before Nott, his problems were supposed to be his own. He wasn’t supposed to share them, because it was so incredibly weak to be unable to support yourself. He did not want to be a burden.

“Don’t be sorry, Caleb, just -” Her hand finds his uninjured shoulder, squeezing tight. “If you are hurt or you need something, tell me, tell anyone who is there so we won’t have to drag your corpse around with us. Got it?”

“Alright.” He whispers into the space between them. He is acutely aware of the rest of the Nein watching them, he can hear the anxious patter of Nott’s talons drumming against the surface of the table. “Thank you, Beauregard.”

Beauregard smiles then, and it is somehow slightly worse than Nott’s attempt. Her knuckles graze across his cheek for a moment, a playful ghost of a punch before she withdraws again, straightening herself into the stoic, awkward woman he is so fond of.

“I am going to kick your ass when you are better, Caleb!” Jester shouts at him from where she has sat on the bar top, kicking her legs out.

Caleb does not doubt that she will, which is slightly terrifying to think about so he pushes it very firmly to the back of his mind. He finds himself caught up on Beauregard’s words however, because these people, his _friends_ , they do not seem to think that relying on each other is weak; they have never left someone behind for not keeping up.

It is strange, but he much prefers it to what he knows. Perhaps in time he will be able to trust them to keep their word.

He sits beside Nott who hands him a few squares of slightly stale bread, as if he is a duck. For a moment he considers just pocketing them but he recalls his promise to at least make an attempt so he eats it in silence as Nott and Yasha eagerly discuss whetstone oils.

“Right.” Fjord greets as he makes his way to their table, settling heavily at the head and nodding at them all. “So thanks to Brynhild we know that Harrowed Stream is an actual village not three klicks North, which is probably cold as fuck, but it’s not like we have a choice about visiting.”

Mollymauk and Yasha nod in agreement, as if they were actually privy to this information. Caleb misses out on so much due to sleeping, he thinks sourly.

“I’m assuming it is abandoned since the river dried up, unless they changed their trades, but that’s our best bet for finding the Fishmonger.” He points a finger sharply at Jester and then Beauregard before jabbing his thumb against his own chest. “Us three are going to spend the day making out a reliable path to get us there and then we are going to find the building in question. If it looks like it is a cosy little bandit den we’ll circle back and then formulate a game plan.”

“It is probably going to smell disgusting.” Jester whines, mournfully.

“That is true.” Fjord agrees.

Which is how Caleb finds himself waving Fjord, Jester and Beauregard out of the door not half an hour later. They have packed lightly, so it is at least clear that they intend to be back within a few hours.

“So, you seem close.” Nott says by way of forcing conversation after their group sits awkwardly at their table. The room is scarce today and other than a few older men huddled closer to the hearth there is no one else in the Inn.

“As do you two.” Yasha replies.

“I think she was asking for like, fond recollections or a history.” Mollymauk intervenes, patting her bicep as he does.

“Oh right. Yes.” Yasha nods, “We know each other. Because of the, the Carnival.”

“I know that you are telling the truth but every time you speak it sounds as if you are lying.” Caleb says, not unkindly.

“Yeah.” Yasha smiles, tucking a strand of braided hair behind her ear. A flicker of silver beads glimmer with the motion and Caleb follows them with his eye.

“Gods this is painful, shots? I think shots would be great.” Mollymauk starts and Yasha grumbles at his side.

“It is barely noon!” She protests.

“What’s the problem with that?” Nott asks, and Mollymauk points at her, grinning.

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” He says and Nott bunches her shoulders very tight in the way she often does when she feels suddenly overwhelmed and unsure how to react. Caleb sets a hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

“I do not mind.” He shrugs and Mollymauk’s tail twitches as if in excitement.

Mollymauk stands and disappears over to the bar, ducking his head in conversation with the old Elf Brynhild. He passes her some coin and returns to them not a few moments later with a collection of small glasses with various acidic liquids inside. Caleb does not protest it and in doing so finds himself indulging in day drinking for the first time in years. They work their way through tellings of Caleb’s grand banana-loaf heist, of the time where Yasha accidentally broke a tent post in half on a bet and ended up having to hold the entire thing up with her hands until they found a replacement, there is the time Mollymauk accidentally pierced his ear again trying to open a closed hole, or when Nott tried to introduce the concept of queuing to her birth clan.

Perhaps too many hours later they break for food and more drink, and Caleb finds himself stacking a collection of empty tankards to his left, making a game with Yasha in an attempt not to topple them. He has not been drunk in a long time and the excited energy thrumming in his chest is enthralling.

Mollymauk and Nott are at the bar, Nott perched on one of the tall stools and assisting the man in mixing an array of gin and tonics that were not truly intended to be combined. She must say something crass because Mollymauk throws his head back and laughs, the sounds carrying like an iron bell and Caleb savours it for a moment before Yasha clears her throat and draws his attention back.

“How are things with Beauregard?” He asks, watching how her pale face colours with a minimal splash of rosy pink.

“Yes, good.” She smiles, her polite chuckle is strained and she grips her tankard tight.

“I am glad.” Caleb says honestly. “Beauregard is good, I like her, I am glad that, it is good that she has you.”

“I would be inclined to say the same.” Yasha whispers, casting a glance over her mammoth shoulders towards the bar. Caleb follows the line of her gaze, he looks at Mollymauk with his ruddy grin and his excited gestures as Nott attentively stirs a cup with a spoon and he turns back to Yasha blankly.

“We’re not.” Caleb insists, waving a hand in dismissal. “-Never, not. No, no.”

“Oh.” Yasha frowns, taking a long draught of her drink before awkwardly staring at the table.

“Yeah.” Caleb finishes, lamely.

“Holy shit, we did it!” Mollymauk yells, barrelling over to Yasha with their experimental glass tight in hand. He presses it insistently into her grip and watches eagerly as she smells it, grimaces and takes a sip.

“It…” She hesitates before shrugging, “That is fucking repulsive.”

“It’s not about taste, it’s about the fact that this is potent enough to lay you out for about two years.” Nott chides in, hopping into the seat near Yasha and prying the drink from her hand.

“Nott, please do not drink that.” Caleb tells her sternly, fearing for the well being of his friend. She has an admirable tolerance, but if they are to be travelling tomorrow as Fjord said it would be wise that the majority of their party were not nursing monstrous hangovers.

“I’m sorry Caleb, truly I am, but it is far too late for me.” She tells him, mask pulled just below her chin so that she can take another sip.

“We’ll sleep it off.” Mollymauk insists, snaking his arms around Yasha’s broad shoulders in an impromptu hug. He rests his chin atop her head and peers down at Caleb with a smile.

Caleb wiggles his fingers in a wave that Mollymauk must find somewhat humorous because he snorts. Yasha gives an aborted attempt to shrug him off which does little more than entice another giggle from him.

Caleb feels warm at the sound.

“You… you need to rest.” Yasha insists, prying his arm free from her shoulder and Caleb stands without hesitation, perhaps in an attempt to return the previous night’s favour or perhaps because he feels some unspoken obligation to care for his drunken mess of a Soulmate (and isn’t that weird? Thinking that word with such certainty.)

He sets a hand gently on Mollymauk’s shoulder and the man beams at him, jovial energy and eagerness. Caleb stares at him for perhaps a moment too long, a moment enough for Mollymauk to notice his hesitation and to bask in it.

“Nott, do not stay up too late.” Caleb tells her before he turns to climb the staircase, Mollymauk a weight at his side. It is not too difficult, although the man has managed to sling an arm across his shoulder and his fingers are ghosting across the skin of his neck in a way that burns and tickles all in one.

Their room is not particularly cool as they enter, and Mollymauk sets himself heavily on the edge of the bed.

“I am not even that drunk.” He says, perhaps quoting every drunk youth to have ever existed in their realm.

“Alright.” Caleb tells him shortly, finding their oil lamp where it now resides on the crooked desk and providing it with a flame. Once a decent amount of light it curling into the dusky corners of their room he eases the door closed with his foot.

He toes his boots off and places them at the base of the bed. In an attempt to follow suit Mollymauk struggles with his laces for a moment before Caleb huffs a tired laugh and helps the man untangle and pull them free. He does not think too much on it, on undressing the man in their private room, of the warmth he feels when their fingers touch or the shock of excitement that pierces his gut when Mollymauk squeezes his hand in thanks.

Once his boots lie discarded on the floor Caleb settles on the base of the bed, feeling an uncanny tension settle in the silence between them.

Mollymauk sprawls back against the headrest of the bed, one hand thrown up to tiredly thread his fingers across the wispy curls of his hair and the gilded bone of his horns. The lamplight throws cruel, dancing shadows across his face as the flame sputters and the ink on his cheek glistens dewy like a melting candle. Caleb looks at him the way he often looks at old scriptures, with an amount of veneration and magnanimous awe, consumed by just how utterly fantastic it is.

Caleb has never truly been in love before but he may be in serious trouble if it feels like this.

“You’re staring at me, again.” Mollymauk laughs, breathless, as he runs one of his large hands over his forehead, shielding his eyes. His lips twist upwards into a cruel smile. “You are always staring.”

“Urm.” Caleb says, cleverly.

“I thought that I would get used to it, all of the eyes, the pointing, the whispering. I was an attraction, a barker, of course people would look at me, that was the whole point.” Mollymauk is still smiling, but Caleb does not think that it is with mirth. “But for some, for many, it was always more than just the novelty, the thrill and carnal pleasure of seeing something exotic. They weren’t looking at the swords with that terror in their eyes, it was always me.”

“Because they’ve seen swords before, and card games and juggling and fortunes, but a Tiefling? Shit, now we’re talking about terror! I guess I thought it was funny at first, too, because I started flashing my tattoos more, baring my teeth, speaking Infernal? Gods, people are so utterly terrified by Infernal. I can remember this one time with Toya, I looked at her and I just asked a simple question and I remember she flinched as if I had struck her- I didn’t - hm, it’s wasn’t even-” Mollymauk swallows hard, cutting himself short with an irritated groan as he pulls his hand away to bunch it angrily by his side.

“It’s just so frustrating, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Mollymauk whispers, knitting his fingers together across his lap and squeezing tight. “I’m so sick of people being frightened of me, of you being frightened of me-”

“Molly, I’m not scared of you-” Caleb starts without hesitation, feeling a waning, intense worry burn in his chest.

“Oh fuck off with that.” Mollymauk snaps and Caleb closes his mouth so quickly that he feels his teeth smart together with a clink. “You’re not scared of me? Most of the time you look at me as if I slaughtered your family, like I’m some monster when you’re just so happy and smiling and easy with the others. I say a word and you just shut down. You have your moments, these little snippets where you’re so remarkably honest and I think that maybe- I think that you- I, hm, then you blink and really look at me, as if you just recalled who you’re with and you revert back to shying away as if you expect me to tear your throat out.”

“I do not understand.” Caleb intervenes, his tongue feels thick like a wad of cotton and he works not to choke on it.

“You avoided being in the same room as me for three days the first time you heard me speak Infernal.” Mollymauk says, and Caleb frowns because it is not necessarily untrue. He did avoid Mollymauk for quite a substantial amount of time. He had spent a great majority of his time wallowing in anxiety and another half conjuring up ways to hide the inflicted wounds so that Mollymauk would not notice them marring his neck. He had discovered his Soulmate and Caleb was burdened with that for a very long time.

“I did.” Caleb relents, feelings a sharp pang like phantom talons clutch his chest with dread.

Mollymauk looks at him then, eyes narrow and handsome mouth pulled down into a sneer.

“I just want, I, I don’t know what I want. I want you to not be scared of me, and I’m acting like a moron right now and I will absolutely be a wreck in the morning so apologies in advance if I can’t meet your eye.” Mollymauk heaves a laugh that sounds curiously weighted, almost as if damp. “Not to imply that this is your fault, you haven’t even- I don’t want you to feel bad, that’s the whole point: I want you to be happy.”

Caleb is not entirely sure how to process everything right now so he instead focuses on listening, reflecting on how he has acted around Mollymauk and cringing because, yeah, some of his behaviour has been a smidgen dickish.

“I’m sorry.” Caleb murmurs at the same time that Mollymauk groans: “Shit, I’ve murdered the mood, here.”

“It is bold of you to imply that there was a mood.” Caleb mutters, staring at his cupped hands and allowing a wry smirk to tug his lips upwards. “Unless I was just having more fun than most people when taking off your boots.”

The implication behind the words were not intentional but Caleb is not entirely blind to them either, he feels a burn blossom at the nape of his neck, creeping along his jaw where it is thankfully smothered by his beard.

“Now, I’m nearly certain that most people have a far more enjoyable time taking off my boots, although they’re usually more eager about what comes after. Usually. I’ve had a few that are just _really_ into the thigh highs.” Mollymauk shrugs, and Caleb huffs a puff of air that likely translates into a laugh. There is still a palpable tension there that has not entirely dissipated but Caleb is almost grateful for it, he appreciates that Mollymauk trusted him enough, even when entirely shitfaced, to share those things with him. Communication is going to important for him to figure out how to make this all work.

“Mollymauk.” Caleb interrupts, feeling a heated flush burn across his clammy face, he knows that what he is about to say is ridiculous and undoubtedly foolish but at the moment his whiskey addled tongue cannot conjure anything better. “I don’t fear you. Perhaps at first, yes, but I was scared of many things then, including my own shadow. But now? I trust you to keep my back and I am so sure that you would not harm me that I do not know what I would do if you ever… if you ever do.”

“Shit.” Mollymauk bites out, entirely eloquently. He is looking at Caleb with wide eyes and a minimal, drunken flush has coloured his cheeks violet.

“You asked for honesty, last night.” Caleb tells him, simply. His stomach is still rolling with queasy embarrassment, restless and warm with that weightless sort of giddiness you get when you stand on the edge of a very sheer drop and for a moment consider the prospect of falling.

“I did? I did, I did ask for honesty.” Mollymauk parrots, and at once some of the tension holding him so straightly upright dissipates, his shoulders droop and he laughs in a heavy, warm way. “I used to be scared shitless of your whole fireball gimmick, I used to think that it would burn your hands.”

“You get used to it, as a boy my hands were covered in scabs.” Caleb wiggles his fingers and Mollymauk makes a noise in his throat much like a suffocated laugh. “Why did you get this tattoo?” Caleb asks, creeping up the bed so that he can prod one of his fingers quite harshly against the curling feather that rests on Mollymauk’s cheek.

“Ouch, hey-” Mollymauk laughs, face creased with his mirth and strikingly young in the light of the cascading flame. Caleb looks at him, drinks in the joy of his expression and the brightness of his eyes and his hand hangs very stupidly in the air between them. “I got it because I wanted it, and you should always get yourself the things that you want.”

Caleb is close enough to smell the sweet sherry on his breath, he feels it burn his nose. Mollymauk looks at him and smiles, giddy with the excited, drunken rapport between them. Caleb is struck by it at first, but he soon realises that he is smiling too. Which leaves them there, two drunken idiots grinning brazenly at each other, asking questions and for once divulging in truths.

“What is your favourite book?” Mollymauk asks and Caleb hesitates for a moment, his chest pierced by some relentless warmth and he works very hard not to grin like a love struck fool. No one has ever asked him that before.

“When I was twelve, there was a novel I found that taught hand movements and basic incantations. It was written like an adventure, with characters and a plot and a dragon.” Caleb shrugs, feeling oddly embarrassed. He had never spoken of Die Wandernde Ent to anyone, not even his friends or his parents, but the book still draws to him, the awe and excitement he had felt reading the words, of learning alongside his heroes.

“Incredible.” Mollymauk laughs, long and deep and whisky warm. “I don’t have a favourite book.”

“I want to try a pastry from Nicodranas.” Caleb replies, forlornly thinking of food with the fondness that most drunks possess for it.

“I want to pierce my horn again, put a ring through the dead bone here.” Mollymauk says, tracing the point at the end of his left horn, Caleb follows the movement and does not think that another bauble would look amiss there.

“I think that would look nice.” Caleb tells him, smiling. “I like your piercings.”

Mollymauk grins, curling his hand around the point of the horn. He looks at Caleb for a moment in which he stares easily back, there is something smothering him, making him pliant and happy. Mollymauk seems happy too, despite their earlier conversation, his eyes are soft, slightly damp and glistening in the lamplight.

“You look good in that shirt. I like it when you wear my clothes.” Mollymauk whispers, voice pitched far lower than before, almost as if he was attempting to bite the words back. Caleb feels something warm seize his heart, burrowing into his ribs until he is burning. His pulse is a hammering rush in his ears when he smiles.

“I want you to kiss me.” He whispers back. There is a beat of silence.

“What the fuck.” Mollymauk hisses, his voice catching in his throat. Caleb feels some icy dread at the affronted tone, all at once the drunken shroud shatters and he is hit with the realisation of his words, like being doused with a pitcher of ocean water. He opens his mouth to babble, to craft something that can excuse his desperate confession but Mollymauk is still silent, and then he is moving, shuffling closer to fill in the distance between them.

He smells of citrus and the whet oils of his swords, the rhubarb sherry on his breath is scorching and bitter. He kneels in front of Caleb like a man awaiting judgement, palms reaching but not touching, Caleb can see the erratic rising and falling of his chest through his undone shirt.

“Is this, do you want-” Mollymauk huffs a breath, and he looks up with an intense flicker in his eye. Caleb feels his heart pulse in his throat and his hands tremble in his lap. “Do you want me to, can I-”

Caleb does not trust himself to speak without choking, his breath is caught in his chest like a bubbly, chattering sparrow. Mollymauk sets one of his large, warm hands on his jaw and Caleb sighs at the tender tracing of his fingers, coarse with callouses. Caleb nods, barely a flicker of motion that presses the curve of his jaw more firmly into the man’s palm.

He does not close his eyes at first. He watches Mollymauk’s damp mouth open as if he is to argue again before he firmly sets his jaw and inches closer, turning his head for better access. Their eyes meet for a painfully tense moment in which Caleb is near certain that his heart will implode, Mollymauk looks reserved, confused almost, with eyes are that frighteningly tender. Then he clenches his eyes closed and closes the distance between them.

His lips are soft and firm where they meet him, and Caleb feels his eyes drift closed without protest. He tastes of his sherry and mead and the press of his mouth causes Caleb’s lips to warm in a delightful way, like taking a long draught of whiskey.

Mollymauk’s hand presses firmer, his fingers sliding up to cup his jaw, fingertips pressing to the base of his skull and tangling in the soft hairs there. The motion coaxes Caleb to recuperate, melding his lips to Mollymauk and following the man’s gentle motions. There is the scraping sound of Mollymauk’s smooth jaw rasping against Caleb’s stubble and he finds himself smiling into the kiss.

“Fuck.” Mollymauk whispers again, and the warm breath ghosts across Caleb’s lips in a way that makes his fingers curl where they have buried themselves into the mess of Mollymauk’s hair. He feels the hard press of one of his horns and so he smooths his fingers over the coarse surface, massaging the tender flesh that binds it to his skull. Mollymauk groans, pressing his forehead to Caleb’s for a moment before crashing their mouths back together with far more fervour.

Caleb gasps, curling his fingers tight as he feels the wet, insistent press of Mollymauk’s tongue against his lips. He opens his mouth willingly, savouring the eager heat pooling low in his gut. It almost feels like some fervid dream, the clouded fog in his head, the warm, wet glide of their tongues. Mollymauk is making small, throaty noises whenever Caleb tugs at the strands of his hair. Caleb pushes forward, bumping their chests together enough to feel his errant heartbeat through their shirts. He kisses deeper, firmer, smoothing his tongue until he feels a sudden sharp point that sends a shock of excited adrenaline pounding in his veins. Mollymauk is attentive and so mercilessly eager, he hums a small laugh that rumbles through Caleb’s very bones and without warning he sucks, nipping at Caleb’s tongue with his fangs.

Caleb breaks the kiss with a groan, pulling away from the damp warmth to take heaving breaths. He presses his forehead to the crook of Mollymauk’s neck, savouring the warmth. His hands remain rooted in the man’s hair, wrapped around his horn, and Mollymauk easily rests his hands against the small of Caleb’s back, rubbing nonsense patterns against his flushed skin.

“Well, this is a very interesting turn of events, I must say.” Mollymauk says, billowing warm plumes of air against the shell of Caleb’s ear. “I want to kiss you, again.”

“Alright, Mollymauk.” He murmurs, pressing his lips against the flush skin of his throat. He feels the erratic pounding of his pulse, warm and in a frightening tandem to his own jumping heart.

The hands against his back press insistently, coaxing him forward until he is straddling the man’s lap. He has to tilt his head down to brush their lips together in a chaste kiss but he finds that he quite enjoys the leverage; he likes being able to feel the firm press of his chest and the lithe cut of his thighs. Mollymauk tangles a hand in his hair, guiding them into another kiss.

It is easier now that there is some familiarity between them and Caleb knows when to be firmer, when to open his mouth at the suggestive press of his tongue. For a brief moment he pulls them apart and presses a few stray, erratic kisses along Mollymauk’s jaw for no other reason than because he wants to. Mollymauk laughs and the sound buzzes through him like a roll of thunder.

Caleb feels the insistent press of fingers against his hip, shudders as they dip under the hem of his shirt and tickle along his side. His skin is warm and he hums a laugh into the kiss as he feels Mollymauk’s coarse fingertips scrape across his back. His head is heady and he is consumed by the pleasant, delicious contact between them.

Mollymauk’s other hand comes to rest on his waist and with a little tug he attempts to start working Caleb’s shirt up. For a moment he considers just letting it happen, just rushing to their sweaty, necessary conclusion and then dealing with the questions and the conflict afterwards. But that would be brave of him and in the end Caleb is still a coward.

“Hey-” He speaks, breaking off from their kiss. “I’d really rather, erm, not the, that the shirt-”

“Oh.” Mollymauk says shortly and smiles. His cheeks are flushed dark in the lamplight and his lips are damp. “It is dreadfully cold in here, I understand.”

“Yeah.” Caleb says although he is absolutely sweltering.

“So..” Mollymauk starts, pulling one of Caleb’s hands to his lips so that he can press a gentle kiss to his palm. “What are you looking for?”

Caleb shivers as his warm breath plumes across his fingers and he thinks hard for a moment. The liquid courage of his drink can only carry him so far and he is beginning to feel a little light headed.

“I, hm, I honestly do not know.”

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” Mollymauk laughs, pulling Caleb’s hand higher to rest against his cheek. Caleb splays out his fingers, gingerly tracing the shape of his jaw. 

“I like this, I like…” Caleb shrugs helplessly, feeling his face burn molten at the whispered confession.

“I do too.” Mollymauk says, grinning. “I could never tell if you did or if I was reading you wrong, I thought sometimes you would look at me and I’d get my hopes up about it but I never actually imagined it would happen.”

The words cause Caleb to feel giddy, his skin running hot and his blood running cold. He all at once wants to run away and hide and to bury his face in Mollymauk’s neck for as long as he will have him.

“It was only a kiss.” He says, brushing his fingers against the shell of the man’s ear.

“And that is enough.” Mollymauk murmurs.

Caleb is struck by the words, blinking very stupidly for a moment. He had read about love many times when he was younger, had been captured by the way the words painted some fantastic dream of unbridled affection. This, he thinks with certainty as he ducks down to brush their lips together, is infinitely better than his books.

“We need to-” Caleb starts, leaning back to rest fully in Mollymauk’s lap. His chest is heaving beneath the crimson shirt and he runs his free hand across his forehead. “Nott will be back, soon.”

“Yeah.” Mollymauk nods, almost apathetic. “But we need to talk about, this.” He waves a hand in a swoop, gesturing to the pair of them and Caleb nods reluctantly. He hates having to talk about things.

“Of course.” He says, and finds himself incredibly reluctant to actually move. He likes being close to Mollymauk and he likes the downy swoop of his gut when the man kisses him like he is fragile.

Mollymauk sits up and Caleb slides backwards onto the bed, frowning very pointedly before shuffling to lay back against the pillows. He blinks at the ceiling, feeling incredibly weightless as Mollymauk makes as if to stand up. Caleb reaches out thoughtlessly, catching his hand and threading their fingers neatly together.

“The chair must not be good for your back.” Caleb says, looking more at the chair than he does at the man he is addressing. He hears a huff of laughter and then Mollymauk is laying down beside him, nestling their still interlocked hands neatly between them.

“It’s not. My perfect posture is ruined.” He relents and Caleb rolls his eyes. Mollymauk is on his side, watching Caleb with an unreserved smile softening his features. He seems wine drunk and warm, young beneath the scars and tattoos and piercings.

He reaches out for a moment, tracing his fingers through Caleb’s hair before pressing a smiling kiss against his temple. Caleb squeezes his hand tight in thanks, and Mollymauk rests his head there, pressing his forehead to Caleb’s shoulder.

“Nott is going to kill me.” Mollymauk whispers and Caleb laughs softly.

“We will talk about it.” He promises, feeling the looming presence of sleep beckon him in. He thinks that he can hear Mollymauk speak some more but the words are distant and the language is muffled by his sleep addled mind.

In the morning, he reassures himself, he will address everything in the morning. For now he just wants to lay there and feel Mollymauk against his side.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, back to our regularly scheduled programme.
> 
> also, Lorenzo, don't interact.

Caleb dreams of smouldering ashes and a bitter burn so harsh that his tongue is numb.

He wakes with a start, head pounding and body jerking into consciousness as if it were thrown at him. It takes a moment to remember where he is; for there is always that quaint exodus that comes with coming awake where for a moment you do not quite remember yourself. Then everything washes over him abruptly, like a crashing wave that leaves his ears ringing. There is a warm hand on his waist, slipped beneath his shirt and heavy on his too-warm skin. Soft, even breaths are whispering across his cheek.

Everything is remarkably still between them, tranquil in a way he has not experienced in a very long time. 

Caleb kissed Mollymauk and that is not something that he can retract. It is not something that he would take back, even if he could, he thinks quite suddenly. The revelation is not as terrifying as it ought to be.

Misty morning light is creeping through the cracks high up in the ceiling and it cascades into the room with showering particles of dust. He watches the specks dance about listlessly as he gently tucks his head back into the crook of Mollymauk’s neck. He listens to the man’s even breathing, feels his heart beat as if echoing in Caleb’s own chest, all the while the erratic part of his mind that screams blood and ash and burning and burning rages on.

His heart is in his throat before he quite realises _why_ _._ He jerks upright, feeling all at once his reeling, pounding head (hungover) his thumping chest (panic, definitely panic) and a sharp, tearing pain against his scalp (he isn’t even remotely sure!)

“By the Gods, what is going on?” Mollymauk slurs out, and Caleb feels the man, upright and slouching beside him. Their legs are tangled beneath the sheets.

“I, erm, I am not sure that.. I am sorry.” Caleb stammers, and Mollymauk’s hand comes to rest gently on his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t apologise about things.” Mollymauk hushes, still slow with sleep, and Caleb offers a weak nod.

The movement sends a tearing pain across his scalp once more and Mollymauk hisses. He raises a hand to probe at the tender flesh and feels his knotted cluster of hair, perhaps too unfamiliar with a brush, clumped around the cold shape of one of Mollymauk’s piercings.

“Please do not move, I quite like having an ear lobe.” Mollymauk whispers, voice sleep-warm and dreadfully fond.

“I like not having a bald spot.” Caleb murmurs, feeling his eyes slink closed and his breathing ease. It is better, having something to focus on, drawing his attention from the terror of his memories. He also enjoys Mollymauk’s voice, slightly gruff from his snoring, but decidedly endearing.

“Did you just act smart with me?” Mollymauk gasps in delight, and Caleb does not have to open his eyes to see the impression of his smile, toothy and dimpled.

“I am always smart.” Caleb says, deadpan.

“I like this Caleb a lot.” Mollymauk decides, and his laugh is a tender sound that rings like a wrought bell. “Do I have to make you drink more or was it the bed warming?”

Mollymauk’s head is tilted rather crudely on an angle, trying to keep Caleb’s eye and to unfasten his knotted earring all at once. Eventually Caleb feels the tension give, and Mollymauk’s fingers begin to gently card through his hair. Caleb is almost overwhelmed by the sensations, the gentle, innocent touches and by Mollymauk’s broad smile beneath his sleep-dark eyes. It is so dreadfully domestic and Caleb is terrified because he enjoys it, he could so very easily submit to this, would gladly trade his potential for frosty mornings beneath too warm covers.

“I’m glad to do both, again.” Mollymauk whispers into the space between them, then, stammering he tacks on a throaty: “I mean, if you want to?”

Caleb does not know what he wants, it is easier to forfeit decision making to his companions, who are wiser and more deserving. Every major decision that Caleb has ever made of his own accord has been so dreadfully wrong. Without Nott or the Nein to correct him Caleb has done some terrible, selfish things.

Yet tender touches are not interrogations, and feather-light kisses are not poison. Caleb is happy with Mollymauk, and perhaps that is not so grievous.

He places his hand on Mollymauk’s cheek, brushing his thumb across the tender skin. He leans up and presses their lips chastely together for but a moment, as if dipping his finger into a steaming bath, one final test before taking the plunge.

“You…” Caleb whispers against Mollymauk’s mouth, lips brushing together softly with the movement. “You need to find some ginger to chew.”

“Wow.” Mollymauk laughs, pressing his forehead to Caleb’s as he ducks down to chuckle. “I mean, really, you don’t smell so good yourself, but at least I had the decency to keep it private.”

“You have never been decent in your life.” Caleb grouses, savouring the pleasant hum of warmth between them, the gentle touch of their foreheads is grounding for him, something docile and tepid enough that he would stay there forever, if the world were kinder.

“It is not as if you seem to mind that.” Mollymauk grins savagely, brazen and eager in a way that stills Caleb’s heart for just a beat; he is rendered utterly lost by the fondness.

Caleb huffs a sigh, offering an aborted sound of agreement. Mollymauk presses a kiss to the side of his mouth, feather-light. There is a bristling scruff as Caleb’s beard rasps against his jaw, and then Mollymauk is pressing kisses to his throat, scarcely there with the dampness of his tongue. There is a hand against the back of his head, fingers tangled in his hair, and he presses back against it.

It feels almost as if hours pass between them, with Mollymauk’s lips on his throat and Caleb’s jittery hands clutching his shoulders desperately. He feels the hard press of teeth against his collar, nipping lightly enough to draw a low, broken moan from him. He tries to bite it back, clamping his mouth shut tight and pressing his face to Mollymauk’s hair: hiding, hiding, always hiding. The man smells of brimstone and citrus and slightly damp grass, like an oncoming storm.

He feels a grin against him, pointed and broad.

Caleb ducks his head enough to press his lips to Mollymauk’s ear and, only after divulging himself by placing a kiss against one of the large golden hoops pierced there, he whispers: “It has been a long time for me, shut up.”

“I am surprised that anyone would _ever_ , you, my friend, are a giant asshole.” Mollymauk recites, between littering his uninjured shoulder with lazy kisses.

“Fuck you, Mollymauk.” Caleb hisses, words tempered by his smile.

“Is, hm, is that an offer?” He asks, pausing his motion to look up at him. His hair is sleep-heavy and billows down over his eyes and Caleb stares back at him helplessly enthused.

“Nein.” He says, very softly.

A flicker of something ripples across Mollymauk’s face, a confused, almost invisible scrunch of his brow. Caleb leans down, bringing their lips together for a moment despite the tang of stale gin. He likes their teasing, it is fun and almost innocent, and so it makes Caleb feel delightfully young.

“I retract my asshole comment.” Mollymauk declares, holding up a single hand as if swearing an oath.

Caleb does not speak, rather, he thins his lips into a smarmy smile. It is a smile he crudely wore in his cell house, when guards would catch his eye with suspicion darkening their gaze. Now, however, Mollymauk rewards the expression as he grins back eagerly, eyes creasing with his mirth.

Then, almost abruptly, his face draws into a frown. His eyes, empty and directionless, grow wide. His mouth falls open, lips still damp and flushed, and his face scrunches as if he is struck with sudden sickness. Caleb’s too warm body flushes with a shock of frigid nerves, he is babbling before he can summon any words to speak, a mantra of stammering that Mollymauk silences with his cold, steady words:

“Caleb, what is this?”

A finger presses to the curve of his shoulder, and Caleb glances down to find where his shirt has slipped down to reveal the pale flesh there, mottled with puckered white scars.

It feels as if the air is squeezed from his lungs; there is a distant ringing in his left ear that sounds remarkably similar to a fire-warden’s bell. Caleb blinks, very slowly, and swallows to ensure that he does not bring up the previous night’s meal.

“They are simply scars.” Caleb stammers, raising a hand to push the finger away but instead slapping the man’s forearm in his reeling panic. He can’t, he doesn’t _want_ this to happen, not right now, not when things were so good. His heart is in his throat when Mollymauk reaches for him again.

“No.” Caleb bites out, scrambling backwards off of the bed until his back meets the hard, coarse wooden wall. His chest is heaving, a raspy, wet sound emanating that he soon recognises as his own pathetic breaths.

“Hey now, Caleb.” Mollymauk starts, and there is an inflection in his tone, something just so terribly pitched that is bordering on nerves. “I, now this might be crazy but, I know those- they’re, I-”

“This isn’t _fair_ .” Caleb interrupts, terror and worry swarming in his gut like a miasma. “You can’t just, _das geht dich nichts an_. I’m going, I need to think.”

Caleb laces the shirt up, pulling it perhaps too taught, then he plucks up his overcoat and shrugs it on. He dresses hurriedly, hand shaking on his lapels and although he does not face Mollymauk he can feel his burning look as if it is molten on his skin.

“You’re talking about fair? Caleb, are those-”

He forgets his shoes, on the way out of the door; he does not realise it until his back is pressed firmly to the wall in the hallway and his feet are cold against the bare floor. His heart is beating a sickening mantra in his throat and although he would very much like to find a lavatory to throw his guts up into, he desperately needs to speak to Nott.

Out in the corridor he is almost assaulted by the barrage of spices and noise radiating up from the common room below, he can hear Fjord’s bold laughter and Jester’s charming giggles and as he makes his way down to join them he feels so dreadfully cold.

Nott is perched on the edge of one of the low set round tables, picking apart of a breakfast plate into a clear divide of meat (edible), dairy (debatable, depending entirely on the texture), and vegetable (inedible, revolting.) Caleb sets a hand on her shoulder as he sits by her and she pauses from flicking around a mushroom with an unimpressed talon to blink wearily up at him. The savoury smell of boiled potato and foaming butter makes his nausea rise and he must look pale because Nott pulls herself to her feet.

“Are you alright, Caleb?” She asks him hurriedly, concern pulling her shoulders taught.

“Me? No, no I am absolutely not. I have fucked this.” Caleb says, cleverly. “Completely fucked.”

“What happened?” Nott asks and her eyes grow wide with worry.

“He saw them, the scars the-” Caleb gestures around his shoulders dismissively and then folds his hands together ahead of him, squeezing until his shaking subsides.

“What did he say?” Nott does not turn pale because Goblins very rarely exhibit obvious fear, instead she pinches her face into a frown, a mannerism she has so very clearly picked up on from Caleb.

“He recognised them Nott. He could realise and then-” Caleb bites on his tongue harshly to silence his warbling mind. It is simple: either they leave now, or they kill Mollymauk and _then_ they leave. Caleb is not ready for the burden, for the commitment, to be tethered down because of something outside of his control again.

Caleb is dreadfully tired of being a victim of circumstance and cruel realities. Yet at the same time Caleb does not want to harm Mollymauk. He finds himself once more caught up in terribly unfortunately circumstance and he feels abruptly as if he is just a helpless young boy again. 

“How did he see?” Nott speaks up and she scowls at him in clear suspicion.

“He has eyes?” Caleb says shortly, and the phantom press of Mollymauk’s lips leaves him feeling hollow.

He is enamoured with the man, with his fantastic looks and peeling laughter, too brash, too eager, too loud. He has a peculiar naive fondness for the world that Caleb feels burn in his chest, to see someone find joy so simply in a land so tarnished by miseries and disaster. The press of his lips leaves his skin feverish, Caleb would sacrifice almost anything to wake laying in his arms as he did this morning, content and ridiculously happy. Mollymauk bought him a book, for fucks sake, he can’t _not_ love the man.

But Mollymauk is a stranger, and Caleb is a terrible man capable of monstrous things. That is a very dangerous combination. So Caleb can understand that he loves him, that he loves his companions, that leaving is dreadfully cruel.

But Caleb is good at being cruel, especially to himself.

“We need to go.” He says, scarcely a whisper between them.

“But what about the bandits and that Harrowed Stream place? Caleb those people offered us a lot of gold for this.” Nott whispers, nervously. Her eyes are straying towards where the rest of their companions are lounging at the bar; happy, smiling and drinking.

“Forget the gold, Nott. Forget this-” Caleb hisses, gesturing his hand in an encompassing sweep of the room.

“Caleb, these are our friends, they’re- we’re, the Mighty Nein.” Nott touches his hand, gently, and her fingers are clammy with sweat.

“You said that if I wanted to go then we could go.” Caleb bites out, aware that he is entirely too bitter and petulant.

Nott hesitates, eyes softening into something mournful, a scant glimpse of maturity. She opens her mouth to speak again but is silenced by the heavy pounding of boots against the staircase, erratic as if they are taking two at a time. Caleb glances up at just the right moment to catch Mollymauk’s gaze, dreadfully blank, before the man sweeps through the room and out of the front door.

From across the expansive room, he shares a look of concern with Beauregard, who scrunches her face in question towards him. Caleb shrugs.

Yasha stands slowly from the bar stool, setting her tankard down and slipping out of the door into the city streets after Mollymauk. Caleb drums his fingers against the surface of the table, nervous energy burning his veins. Nott does not speak, so he plucks up her tankard and takes a few long drinks.

“How are you feeling, Caleb?” Jester calls out, trotting up to their table with her curious bout of energy. Despite her travelling yesterday she looks rested, giddy and grinning. Her smile soothes him a little, and he waves his hand at her in greeting.

“I am well.” He nods, and Jester pulls up a seat opposite him.

“So get this, right, Harrowed Stream doesn’t even have a stream! We found the Fishmonger place, but it smelled disgusting, and Beau said that we probably shouldn’t go in, so we came right back. Where do you think they got their fish from, Caleb?” She recites, somehow not running out of breath.

“It all dried up, a very long time ago.” Caleb murmurs, recalling the passage he found in that strange purple book. Mollymauk’s book.

He swallows bitterly and turns to his friend. She seems genuinely happy to be with him, her smile is enigmatic and Caleb runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

He does not know what to do.

“We’re going today, to see if we can find anymore leads on these guys. I hope they’re not actually in the Fishmonger though, it seems like it will be sticky.” Jester whines, and then, flashing a crude smirk, she nudges his leg playfully beneath the table. “Not that you would even notice that.”

“Thanks.” Caleb huffs a laugh.

They fall into a familiar conversation, something familiar and fond that devolves into Jester retelling a story of one of her favourite jewellers from her home. Jester is just describing the elaborate latticework of one of her mother’s white-gold bangles when the tavern door thuds open, enough to startle Caleb with a flinch.

Yasha is looming there, expression thunderous, and Caleb feels his blood curdle to ice in his veins.

“You, Widogast.” She barks, and Caleb inches closer to Nott, hunching low against the table. He doesn’t watch her approach, instead he hears the iron heavy crunch of her boots against the floor until everything falls eerily silent.

“What do you think you’re doing, right now?” Yasha snarls, and Caleb has heard that tone before, in battles thick with bloodshed and always directed towards their enemies.

“What do you mean?” He asks, lowly.

“You know exactly what I mean you Zemnian bastard-” Yasha growls, reaching out one of her behemoth hands towards him. He’s not entirely sure what she was planning to do, whether she was ready to strike him or grab him by his collar (he is deserving of both, he would understand) because Nott snarls something hideous and jerks upwards in a flurry.

Her crossbow is already knocked, loaded with one of the barbed arrowheads she favours. She is holding it firm, aimed resolutely at Yasha’s throat.

Caleb has time enough to stumble out of his seat before Beauregard is running over to join them.

“Hey, Nott, what the hell-” She cries, raising her hands placatingly in a bid to calm the woman. She barges forwards, shouldering passed Yasha to root herself firmly between the two. Yasha’s hand is twisted ghastly white around the hilt of her blade but she has yet to move.

“She was about to hurt Caleb!” Nott snarls, pulling her sights higher so that her bolt is once again pointed squarely at Yasha, over top Beauregard’s head.

“He deserves it.” Yasha grumbles, sentinel and frigid, like a cut-stone golem.

“Ja, I probably do.” Caleb hisses, casting a nervous glance across the room. Fjord and Jester are lingering, watching, and Caleb can see the freshly summoned falchion hanging from Fjord’s grip, slick with water and ocean-brine. Mollymauk is by the bar, arms folded across his chest and expression incredibly guarded; Caleb struggles to read him normally, and this is intentionally difficult for him.

“Are you all quite okay, dears?” Brynhilde, the hunched old barkeep asks them.

“We’re all absolutely fine. In fact, we’ll be getting out of your hair in just a moment, Ms. don’t you worry, we’ll leave you be.” Fjord reassures her. He walks over with an expression that is almost harrowing in its intensity, and he places a heavy hand on Beauregard’s shoulder.

“Nott, drop your fucking weapon.” He growls, and Caleb curses under his breath, a low muttering of Zemnian before he forces Nott’s hand down.

“Leave it.” He tells her, and although she snarls again, savage and imposing, she relents.

“You need to watch your fucking dog, Caleb.” Beauregard says, and Caleb notes the way her hand is shaking terribly where it is curled by her side.

“As do you.” He snaps, pushing away from the group and stalking back up into his room. Nott is a silent shadow at his side, face guarded and an ugly sneer pulling her lips back.

\-----

Caleb does not leave. He sits at the base of their bed, one boot held tight in his hand, the other already fastened on his foot, and he considers leaving for what feels like an eternity. After that display he is not even certain that they would try to stop him. Granted, Caleb is a powerful ally, but outside of confrontation he feels that he is not the favourite.

Maybe he is Mollymauk’s favourite. Maybe he was.

He sighs heavily, pulling on his boot and tying the laces. Nott is watching him wordlessly, her pack pulled to a bundle in her lap that she is cradling.

“We get this gold and we leave.” Nott grumbles, voice very quiet. She sounds almost raspy, and Caleb does not reflect on what that may entail. He spares her a passing glance, her large beacon eyes are damp but not yet shed, although her face pulls into some odd contortions to keep the evidence of her upset at bay.

“We can go East.” He says, standing to gather his books. He packs them neatly, folding them in a linen scrap, his new tome and scroll padded and safe at the base of his travel bag.

“You’re right, as always Caleb.” Nott tells him after a moment, and Caleb startles. He glances over to find her staring listlessly up at their high ceiling, expression vacant and consumed by her own thoughts. “You shouldn’t let something like this define you, if you don’t want to be with Molly, if it doesn’t feel right, you shouldn’t have to be just because of this. Sometimes our destinies aren’t right, sometimes you need to have the power to change them all by yourself, even if it seems scary or wrong.”

“Yeah.” Caleb mutters, shouldering his pack. “We should get going, if we are to make it by noon.”

No one speaks on their journey out. Even Jester, who often has words to salve most altercations, keeps reserved and to herself. Idly she will comment on some ancient, abandoned tower as they pass, or a particularly dashing butterfly, but she receives little in way of reply, perhaps a stunted grunt, dismissive and cruelly unwarranted. Once, by a decrepit, dried riverbed Yasha and Mollymauk pause to pluck up a flower with long white petals that curl upwards as if tenderly reaching for the sun. Nott hisses something under her breath as they pass, bitter, and Caleb has a sense that Nott is upset that she is not there with Yasha, learning about the nature around her, with the woman who, despite their faults, is her friend.

Caleb lingers to the wayside, distant, wallowing in his self imposed excommunication. Once more he will follow, and he knows that it will always continue this way. Only one more book; only one more task for the Empire; only one more interrogation; only one more day in his cell; just one more day with the Nein.

He will never make the change himself, he is too coward, too terrified of the repercussions of his own actions. No, it is best that someone else take the lead, less he be responsible for the outcome.

Harrowed Stream is a two hour walk along a decrepit slice of history. The path Fjord navigates is thick with undisturbed pine needles and dirt, ageless as the forest towering magnanimous above them. The sky is dark today, further dampening Caleb’s mood, and as the sun shies away behind swatches of thick, grey clouds, so too does Caleb burrow deep into his scarfs. There is a certain clasp that ensnares a person when they are embarrassed amongst their peers, a looming thought that they think so much lesser of you. Caleb would not blame them for it, but it would hurt like a bite were it true. 

Nott remains tucked to his side, ever vigilant. It is in these moments of curious hurt that Caleb is taken by her the most, struck that although they are two very different people, they are very much a wonderful team. There is no blood between them, not even the curious binding tendrils of magic hewn from the industrious universe. Between them there is nothing but a bond constructed entirely of shared pains and stolen visions of a life they aspire after. Perhaps, Caleb thinks bitterly, Nott is the soulmate the world has conjured for him after all.

He does not deserve her, not for a moment has he earned her affections. Yet she is taken to him and with her attention she has left an impression burned so deep that he feels the mark she left on his heart.

As the path inclines up into the mountains their way narrows into a rocky steeple. They walk in a single line, Yasha guiding them ahead and carving a reliable route through the jutting stone and slick ground. Nott scrambles up the rock face ahead of Caleb, hooking her talons deep into the wet earth to heave herself up. For a moment she turns, squinting at him from behind the greasy tendrils of her hair. Caleb smiles, a thin stretch of his lips, strained but otherwise convincing. She nods, entirely understanding. Just because he is fine does not mean that he is _fine_ and that is something easy to distinguish between them.

Once they have crested the embankment their path sprawls into a rolling woodland, the thin, haggard trunks of pine trees breach the earth, crawling upwards towards the clouded skies. Above the intercepting fingers of their leaves create a shroud that denies entry to all but the most piercing rays of light, and in the darkness about them Caleb spies flickers of movement in the shadows, as if dastardly eyes are tracking them in his peripheral. There are bandits in the hills, after all.

The Mighty Nein, although frayed and disjointed, walk as close as if familiar cohorts through the uncanny trees.

They pause to rest only once, in this time Caleb follows the barren lines of a vacant riverbed, only for a few steps. The earth is soft and gives easily beneath him, as if still moist with the memories of the torrents it once guided. Swaddled beneath a few flecks of dark earth he finds a smooth black stone, the colour of onyx but with significantly less worth; a stone that would be found in a jar on his bedside as a child, simply because the smooth surface had thrilled him to childish glee. He pockets it wordlessly, the additional weight a soothing thing.

His head remains ducked low, a downward cower of submission, a way to remain frightfully small and out of wrath. In both his imperial trappings and the iron wrought bonds of his cell, Caleb discovered that docility often excused him of many confrontations.

By their point of respite Beauregard and Jester are emptying their boots of stones, tumbling them out into the dirt with erratic movements. Here, in their curious sunlit outcropping, Fjord is nowhere to be seen. Although Caleb cannot bring himself to concern the man’s well being with Yasha stood valiant in her guard. Her shoulders are pulled taught, as if some invisible force is clinging to the straightness of her back. Her cold, terrible eyes flicker across him as she surveys the area, and Caleb shudders as they for a moment turn frightfully soft at their edges.

“I would appreciate a moment of you time.”

The voice startles him, and Caleb does not suppress the flinch that wracks him. Mollymauk is hesitant at his side, one hand threaded through the leather binding of his belts, shaking with nerves. His face is pallid and a smattering of dirt has clung to his cheek, likely from their brief climb during the trek. Caleb is tempted for a moment to reach out and to swipe the mud from his face and so he clutches his hand tight around the pebble in his coat.

“We are stopped, are we not?” Caleb murmurs, heart a present fixture in his throat.

“Right.” Mollymauk blurts. His voice a unusually pitched, an octave higher than his usual baritone. Rarely is the man so nervous. When faced with vile monsters he is a laughing thing, quick and ethereal, so elegantly composed. When faced with Caleb he is reduced to his stammering and his hapless, nervous hands

Caleb does not dwell on the thought, he notes the terrible paleness of Mollymauk’s face and he catalogues the expression to pick apart later.

“You said, last night, you said that we would talk about this, about us and then-” Mollymauk scowls, a very cruel look washing across him, scrunching his nose and pulling his mouth into a foul grimace. “Then your scars, they, I know them, I know that I do.”

“You do?” Caleb parrots, very coldly. It is difficult to prevent himself from falling into his brash, stoic mien when facing something unpleasant. It is a mindset hewn from desperation and want for escapism, and when Caleb is terrified he will gradually delve into the lavish hiding place and he will permit his hollow self to proceed in his place.

“I-” Mollymauk huffs then, a rush of breathless, almost startled air that would be whimsical if they were not stood in a sullen, desecrated riverbed with the frigid winter borne winds nipping their skin. Caleb feels a swell in his throat, his attention attuned suddenly to the minor details of his place, he feels almost unnaturally aware of their proximity. There is a thrill of energy in his gut, as if he anticipates something very important to transpire between them, as if he is imprinting this memory into his mind eternally.

“Caleb, I am not entirely familiar with the premise, but I know that when I look at you, when I first saw you in that Tavern, I felt something, here-” Mollymauk raises one of his tender, nervous hands to press his fingers lightly to his throat, as if holding a breath in place.

The statement hangs solitary with them, blanketing the space between them with some crowded, smothering heat. Caleb folds his arms defensively across his chest, holding himself in some cruel parody of an embrace.

“Those scars.” Mollymauk starts again, and Caleb despises the hesitant pity lacing his words, contorting them into something repulsive. Caleb doesn't need pity, nor does he wish to shoulder the burden of Mollymauk's remorseful eyes following his movements. “I know that they're-”

“What is it that you know, hm?” Caleb hisses, he speaks through his teeth, unbecoming and entirely unfair. He does not lower his heated gaze, staring transfixed at the smudge of dirt colouring the man's cheek. Instead he bares witness to the way Mollymauk's face crumples for a moment, lip scrunching as the man bites back against a protest or something far more upset working its way against him. Caleb knows that this is harsh, that his tone is brash and merciless, but his heart is beating a harrowing mantra against his throat and he does not wish for this to happen now.

“I would not be wrong to think that you do not know much of anything, purple man.” Caleb has not used such a moniker for a very long time, and never before has he witnessed such frigid distance emerge between himself and another as the way Mollymauk visibly shudders at the address.

His chest aches, when Mollymauk frowns. The man is a child in comparison to the world, sheltered and ignorant of many things and perhaps too familiar with some great many other monstrous topics; but on this, on _soulmates?_ Caleb is nearly certain that Mollymauk is desperately treading the unfamiliar rapids, trying to keep himself afloat.

“Caleb, please.” Mollymauk whispers to him, and his voice his heavy with some tangible sorrow that turns Caleb's tongue to clay in his mouth.

“Not now.” Caleb replies, a hush between them. They are, in that moment, as if two terribly unfamiliar dance partners, whispering muddled directions to one another between each graceful turn (not now, another time, give me space _)._ There is some forlorn, unspeakable distance between them where they stand flush together.

“Then when?” Mollymauk asks him, coldly. He raises one of his large, nervous hands to scratch against his collarbone. The motion disturbs his variegated shirts, revealing a patch of lacerated skin. Caleb finds his eyes drawn to the scars resting profoundly there, and his lips purse as he sucks on his tongue. He feels almost as if a child tripped up by a multitude of spun deceit, he knows that he is lying and he knows that Mollymauk knows that he is lying too, all that waits for him now is the vile repercussion for having being caught in this mess.

“When we are not caught up in all of this shit, when we actually have a moment to talk.” Caleb replies, endlessly frustrated. A chill is burrowing beneath his layers, settling into his bones and turning his knuckles a motley blue. Mollymauk watches him with a countenance that is strikingly bare, then he must decide something internally, must underline some point boldly because he swallows.

“I would be more inclined to believe you if we had ever talked about something that we planned to discuss before.” Mollymauk shrugs, as if dismissive.

Caleb is frankly terrified of facing this muddled construction between them, a beast with a black body of intrepid, dangerous possibilities and limbs that bow beneath the weight of the daunting prospects. Yes, he is afraid of this unspoken bond, scarcely whispered between them as if it is profane. But so too does he find his chest seized by another fear, conjured by a simple, passive shrug, a fear that is as palpable as the cold sweat of his palms.

Mollymauk could very easily dismiss him, and although both are tender and reeling with their hurt, Caleb does not want for that.

“Well then…” Caleb rasps, a budding nerve sanding his voice shrill with worry. “A promise, a reminder of a conversation to happen.” The stone is cool in his palm, and he holds his hand between them like a courteous, hesitant offering. Mollymauk blinks at him for a moment, expression soothed by his surprise, before he offers up an open palm, as if expecting payment or a reading. Caleb presses the stone to the flat of his hand and traps their hands together for a moment, forming a dome of stagnant warm air between them. Thoughtlessly, tantalisingly, one of Mollymauk’s fingers gently traces a nonsense figure against his knuckles and Caleb sighs as he pulls away from that thrilling touch.

“You are a terrible person, Mr. Widogast.” Mollymauk whispers, affronted. Caleb offers a strained, joyless smile, the bitter twist of lips that often prefaces the shedding of tears.

“I always have been.” He replies, as simple as reciting his name. Caleb had come to understand his cruelties as an ingrained part of his nature, inexcusable but expected.

“The past doesn’t matter here, though. Just because you were once cold does not mean that you must always be. The future is for growth, don’t let your roots hold you down, you are not a tree, Caleb.” Mollymauk smiles in a way that does not reach his eyes and, without once looking at it, he places the small black stone in one of his labyrinth pockets.

Caleb blinks, abruptly taken by the words. He is often rendered startled by the thoughtful way that Mollymauk can speak, it is unnerving, how a man with such affinity for base, carnal pleasures can also meld soothing statements together. How easy he is to dismiss the past, regardless of how terrible Caleb can be.

Mollymauk leaves him there as he returns to speak with Yasha. Caleb finds himself slinking to Nott’s side, simply standing in a content silence with her. She is stormy and frowning, and Caleb gatherers that they must seem resoundingly miserable together. Both are boorish, disdainful, and crass in this moment, but Caleb admires her devotion. Very rarely can they be alone in their worry, where one is nursing some upset the other will shoulder their phantom burdens; you simply cannot hurt one of their pair without harming the other in turn.

Travel resumes once Fjord has returned and he leads their venture onward. They skirt around the crops of woods rather than embarking through them again, and Caleb wonders as to whether it is due to the thickets of snaring wheat grass or due to the uncanny feeling of being stalked in those dark, innocuous trees. Eventually their way leads them to a steep bank, trailing downwards into a curving slope amongst the bleak white mountain, while the snow is thick in pristine, untouched mounds, there are puddles of desolate black where it has melted into pools of sleet.

Caleb is thinking of sparing a few coin on a cobbler to make him a decent pair of boots when Beauregard joins him. She does not acknowledge him beyond a stray flicker of her eyes but her pace easily matches his own, allowing them to travel side by side in a sullen, wary silence. Occasionally she allows her shoulder to brush against him despite their path being expansive enough to comfortably fit a roaming caravan.

“You look like death curdled over, and it’s making me feel like an asshole.” Beauregard murmurs between them, she is intentionally slowing her pace to create a facade of privacy between their conversation and the rest of their companions. Caleb allows her to create a few feet of space between their brigade before he continues walking once more.

“You stopped Yasha from splitting my head like a grape, if anything I should be thanking you.” Caleb tells her, and the curious spark of relief that washes across her expression almost warms his chest in the winter drear. “So, thank you.”

“Not a problem, I’m quite fond of your head.” She smiles and with it she seems to shed an innumerable burden of worry, her shoulders, once pitched forward with stress, ease back into a natural curve of his inelegant, graceful monk friend. “Your greasy, ginger head.”

“Grease keeps it water resistant.” Caleb recites, pointedly.

“Caleb, my dear friend, you have been through some shit.” Beauregard sighs, patting her gloved hand heavily against his shoulder. Her touch is lessened by his thick layers, but it still brings with it some warmth.

“I assume this is the part where you point out that one of the things I have not been through is a bath?” He asks, wryly, and cannot prevent himself from watching her break into a grin from his peripheral.

“You beat me to it, you piece of shit.”

“Right all, time to hush up and keep low.” Fjord calls over his shoulder, his arm is extended, preventing anyone from advancing further along the cobbled together mountainous path. Caleb takes a moment in their ensuing silence to listen to their surroundings and the abyssal nothingness around him sets his nerves on edge; there is nothing but the wispy, eerie flow of the breeze, like a phantom call.

It does not snow in Harrowed Stream, although plump grey clouds hang overhead like a rueful smog, ominous and threatening with the potential to unleash torrents of ceaseless snow. Her buildings are shrouded, bowed together and short as if huddling away from the cold environment. Their bricks are white, not marble but treated with some chemical to bleach them almost to a radiant brilliance that is utterly consumed by the world around them. The wind blows through the town, whistling as it cuts through the shattered glass cases of long since discarded lampposts. Tatters of cloth peak through the small windows of these derelict buildings, creamy white linen irises framed behind wooden pane lashes.

Caleb cannot imagine a river flowing through this town, he cannot imagine it rife with lifeblood and a beating, corporeal heart. Truly Harrowed Stream is the place of ghost stories, desolate and depressed.

Only a singular length of colour sits profoundly abstract amongst the whiteness of it: the length of a panelled beige dock, partially consumed by spindly grey roots, winter deadened like ensnaring skeletal fingers.  A large brass nameplate is hung above the building connected to the dock, and although Caleb cannot distinguish the words at such a distance he feels that the dock itself is a remarkably sturdy clue.

“Look, so it was in Harrowed Stream, after all.” Mollymauk remarks, casting a chipper glance over the curve of his shoulder towards Beauregard.

“Fuck you, Molly.” She bites, and Caleb huffs a brief gust of a laugh.

“There is a door in the back, we think it is their kitchen, but we could not check.” Jester interrupts, her face softened with an amused smile.

“Right, yeah.” Beauregard nods, and she gestures vaguely towards the steadfast impression of the building. There are no remnants of footprints, so there must have been recent snowfall in the passing hours since their group last scouted the area.

“I’m going to run round the back and see if I can find a better way in, actually.” Beauregard states, and Fjord glances to her curiously for a moment, working his mouth as if to reprimand. His expression is quick to simmer and instead he nods, shortly.

“Smart, I’ll join you.” He tells her, and the two of them depart down the steep decline into the town. Perhaps beneath the thickets of snow there is a path of brick or wooden block, but at current the town is labyrinth and directionless and the bleakness of it terrifies Caleb.

Caleb shuffles uneasy as he gradually watches their shapes disperse towards the building, growing bleary in the dark. He follows them sharply until they narrow to two smudged shapes against the whiteness, flickering with movement before disappearing entirely behind the building. Caleb feels in that moment that the entire Nein hold a gust of frigid breath.

The silence proceeds, for a terse moment, and then for a few more. It is not interrupted until Nott grumbles, a muffled nonsense groan as she casts her gaze cautiously about.

“I don’t like it here, I think we should go-” Nott huffs, her tone is taut, as if she is struggling to ease the words from behind a lump in her throat. Caleb opens his mouth to summon some sort of comfort but finds himself disrupted by Yasha, finally drawing her gaze from where last she watched their companions disappear. The monumental women turns towards Nott and offers a soft, motherly smile.

“As terrible as mountain towns are, whatever was here is long since dead.” She says in a moment of frightful composure. Nott blinks wearily and then jerks with a revolting, full body shudder.

“This place is cursed.” Nott insists, voice a throaty squeak.

“Whatever Gods were once here care for it no longer, little one.” Yasha says, solemn.

“Is that meant to be better?” Nott reels, shuffling closer to Caleb only slightly, enough that she can reach out to grasp the tails of his coat should the want arise.

“No, I do not think so. In fact, I think that is much worse.” She murmurs, and Caleb is rendered motionless as his spine is racked with a chill. Not for the first time, he is curious as to what terrors Yasha has endured, and even still he wonders how she has remained kind through it all.

But the past does not matter. She is kind because she chooses to be; anyone could excuse their wrongs for past terrors. She is better.

Caleb wants to be better, too. Not entirely for Mollymauk, in fact, the thought had occurred to him many times before, but for just the first moment he has realised that here, with these people, he may have the chance to actually begin anew again, rising from the bitter ashes to reform himself once more, with the helpful hands of his friends to meld him.

“Yasha, I-” He stammers, swallows, and pointedly stares at their boots, charcoal black against the snow. “Thank you.”

“Erm, I don’t-”

“Hey, did you hear that?” Jester interrupts. The woman had been reserved watching their exchange, roving her eyes across the vacant landscape in attempt to allow their stifled group an air of privacy, but now her brows are creased sternly downwards and she is snapping her head waspishly about in search of some apparent disturbance.

“Was is not just Beau fucking something up?” Mollymauk offers.

There is a sound then, a airy thump, like a ball of wet dough hitting a surface of flour, delicate but dense. Caleb does not know what elicits the thought from him, but he is suddenly overwhelmingly convinced that there is still a lifeblood to this town, a frantic, primal pulse of magic thrumming beneath their feet. He presses his fingers to his forehead and wills himself to focus, to pull apart the daunting fabrics around him to identify anything traced with spectacular magic.

It is not hard, he has a moment to scarcely dip his mind tentatively into the realm before his lungs are wrung empty of anything but terror. He reels forwards, pressing a numb hand to Nott’s head in his panic and he wheezes desperately to the group.

“There is something big here, there is magic everywhere.” He gasps, and Jester places her hand on his shoulder for just a moment before the earth beneath them is disturbed.

From the snowbanks below, just dusting the outskirts of the derelict buildings, there emerges a distorted, skeletal arm. This arm meets a charred, blackened rib cage, colossal and creaking as it emerges to stand upright in the snow. Caleb heaves a singular breath as the creature rights itself, a lumbering thing, almost ten foot and deft. Upon its skull it wears a large wreath of pine branches, interwoven to form a crown. Beneath its arched brow there is cavernous sockets that Caleb feels lock onto his gaze across the field between them.

It shrieks, an unholy rattle of a childish cry and a cat wailing. In its hand there is a sword as long as Caleb is tall, steel and glossy with dew.

“Let’s fight bandits in the hills, you guys, it’ll be _easy_ you guys, it’ll be _fun_.” Nott cries, stumbling backwards in her shock. Thoughtlessly her crossbow is knocked and in hand, and she does not even hesitate before firing a blackened, barbed bolt at the creature. The impact of the arrow is deadened by the distance between them, but Caleb watches it strike the beast in the collar, leaving a thin hole in its form.

“Okay, so this is magic.” Mollymauk grumbles, unsheathing his swords and casting only a sliver of a glance back to address Caleb. “Caleb, you’re magic, what is this?”

“Hm.” Caleb gasps, and nips himself harshly on the wrist to contain his panic. The sting grounds him and he summons forth his voice from beneath his fear. “It is a skeleton, of sorts.”

“I can see _that_ -” Yasha barks, and now it is approaching them, taking long, effortless strides that cut through the deep set snow like a plow.

“Meaning that it is in fact dead, meaning that whatever is holding this thing up is very much alive-”

“So this thing isn’t actually the threat.” Jester interrupts, her voice sounds strained, as if on the cusp of worry.

“I would say that it is still a pretty big threat.” Mollymauk decides, using their moment of conversation to run one of his accursed blades across the nape of his neck, drawing up a well of red blood. Caleb feels a sister sting at the base of his skull and he swallows hard, tearing his eyes away from the man, bitter.

Yasha meets the skeleton halfway, taking long, heavy steps towards it with an enraged roar tearing out of her. She uses the momentum of the hill, of having run down it, to swing her sword down, carving through bone with the grating shatter of porcelain meeting a marble floor.

They quickly descend into chaos from that deciding moment. Caleb lingers to the wayside, far out of the reach of the giant weapon; there is still an aura of magic fizzing in the air, cumbersome and disorientating. It is not the skeleton emitting such a thrilling pull, and so he is careless with his assault, distracted when forming his flames into weapons.

There is a moment in which the creature rears back to bring the frigid steel of its blade down upon Jester, in which Caleb feels his heart dislodge as if punctured, blind panic consuming him again. Ash is on his tongue when the girl glances the blow away with the iron of her shield, a deafening clang rolling throughout the town, and she meets the harrowing monster’s gaze and screams as if berserk.

Nott darts across his vision, dipping in and out of his awareness, for a moment he will catch the outline of her cloak or the shape of her face and then, as swift as she appeared, he will lose track of her again.

In the distance Caleb hears a cry, high and distinct and undoubtedly Beauregard. His attention slips, just for a moment, and the curling tendrils of flame taper on his fingertips as he squints towards the old docks. He is vaguely aware of Yasha hurling herself forward with renewed vigour, clattering her closed fist across the hard bone of the skeleton’s chest with a sickening crunch.

Beauregard and Fjord are running towards them, stumbling through mounds of snow and throwing up torrents of white - but they are not alone, a third figure, shrouded in black, is leading them in their run, in their _chase_.

“There!” Caleb gasps, pointing out the humanoid figure embarking towards them. Their cloak billows about and reveals nothing, like a shroud of tamed nighttime sky, absorbing the light from around them and spitting out nothing but terrors in return.

Briefly Mollymauk looks over, stumbling haphazardly as he ducks beneath a blow aimed towards his jaw.

“Nice of you to join us!” He shouts, voice dastardly and warm. Caleb scowls, not out of displeasure (because he is dreadfully fond of Mollymauk and his easy nature) but out of worry of his distraction.

Beauregard is waving her arms about, some indistinguishable warning, and Caleb narrows his gaze towards the new figure. Still, it is approaching, this is not an escape, this is almost a direct attack-

Fjord summons his falchion, appearing with some primordial, terrible flash of ocean brine in his hand just as the hooded figure hisses a collection of foreign, distressing words.

“Her! Get her!” Beauregard’s voice rings clear now, carrying itself across the clearing on a wave of breathless fear.

Caleb senses the hex curse consume the figure immediately, and he shudders involuntarily at his proximity to the terrible _wrongness_ of it all. Then the mantled woman freezes and the skeleton, forgotten to Caleb’s side, shrieks with such ferocity that Caleb feels nauseous.

The engagement blurs around him: Nott dips into his vision, firing a bolt into the shredded tendrils of the hem of her skirts, she flinches as if struck but Caleb cannot be sure, there is no blood in the snow, no indication that they are winning. Yasha is so utterly distracted by the enchanted creature, meeting each strike with a blow of her own great sword, and on occasion Jester will shoulder in, allowing their companion a moment to breathe. There is blood thrumming in his ears and a vile taste of copper on his tongue, the tender heat of flame licks the pads of his fingers as he sends another flaming ball at the woman and he can see the skeleton turn it’s harrowing gaze on him, taking a lumbering step towards him and then, then he is struck by a pain so sharp that he stumbles.

His vision turns suddenly white, his surroundings abruptly damp as if he has stepped into a watercolour canvas. His chest rattles when he breathes, and he turns his head down to find himself unscathed.

He moves to right himself and ends up falling to a knee in the snow; his next breath is hollow and fragile, like a rattle of parchment in his chest. He scowls at the looming figure, despite their shrouded visage he _knows_ that in that moment, they are staring directly at him.

“Molly! Shit, Molly-” Beauregard hisses and Caleb feels his stomach roll with some bitter terror. He attempts to stumble to his feet, fails monumentally, and ends up leaning heavily on his knees and one shaking, numb hand in the snow.

Dragging his eyes upwards he finds an image so horrendous that he wretches; Mollymauk is still standing, but Caleb is entirely convinced that he is only doing so because he has no other option. The colossal sword is run through his chest, shredding the shoulder of his harlequin coat, smattering him with crimson blood.

Caleb feels his chest burn as if touched with molten fire as Mollymauk presses forwards, a wet sound escapes him, perhaps a laugh if he were not smothered by his own wheezing breaths.

Mollymauk presses himself far enough into the sword to duck his face close to the beast’s own and in some Infernal tongue he hisses, then, almost sporadically, he jerks his head to the side and stares transfixed at the shrouded figure, continuing his scathing speech. Caleb watches as a smear of crimson blood seeps from the corner of his mouth, staining his skin unnaturally.

A shudder rolls through him and Caleb is momentarily blinded by pain, he groans and feels the blade against him so intensely that he wants to scream.

“Caleb? Caleb, hey, shit, shit.” He hears the prattle of Nott’s voice, tucked low and close, and he is distantly aware of a press of a hand against his cheek.

“Caleb you need to stand up.” She pleads, and the hand moves to form a vice-like grip around his forearm, tugging desperately, empowered by her fear.

It is difficult, stumbling onto his knees, and his shoulder feels limp as if the muscles keeping him from toppling apart like shredded paper are waning. His chest is damp, and he manages to find Nott’s wide, terrified eyes staring at the place he knows that the sword’s phantom blade has pierced.

He devolves into a coughing fit that paints the snow with a mottled splash of red.

“Alright.” Nott says, decisively. Caleb watches an aspect of her expression harden, a minute grimace contorts her face into something utterly feral; a true goblin marauder of the legends. Caleb does not need to hear the word, spat from her tongue, but she says it regardless.

“Boltstrike.”

Her crossbow is drawn and notched, and Caleb is convinced that he does not breathe in that dreadful moment, he cannot do anything but watch, utterly transfixed and deafened by the hollow ringing in his ears, as she lines the black-tipped bolt up to Mollymauk’s head. Her finger glances the trigger mechanism.

“Nein- Nein _,_ _Nott_.” Caleb pleads, sputtering, his tongue feels as if cloth, stifling and attempting to muffle his words, as if his own body is attempting to restrain him during this.

Caleb cannot be confident of many things, but he does know in that pinnacle moment, drenched with snow and blood, that Mollymauk’s death would be a pain worse than any he has ever suffered. He jerks forward, knocking the crossbow down and watching as Nott startles, shrieks her surprise, and fires the bolt into the snow laden ground, ringing out with the sound of a shattering vase.

For a moment their eyes meet, Nott's wide and terribly pained. 

Breathing, Caleb thinks distantly, is a remarkably difficult thing to do, when your chest is pounding as if a war drum. He sucks in a few deep, panicked breaths through his nose, a desperate bid to ward off the shrouded veil of unconsciousness and for a moment he think he may have conquered it. Then, with a violent jerk, Mollymauk turns on the blade embedded in him, embedded in _them_ and Caleb’s vision sparks with a vicious, startling white.

Curiously, his final waning thought, looking upon Nott’s wide, damp eyes, is that this is not so ignoble a death to have earned, defending those that he loves.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you ever write too much and then have to awkwardly split the chapters? because same. 
> 
> also, your comments on the previous chapter left me dead, I love you all.

As the evening stretched into an insufferable morning, rife with iron clattering and bleak, drear sunlight, Nott folded herself more assuredly into her cot. Her cell, composed of dank grey brick blocks, each stone being cut larger than even her former Chief, are always bitterly cold to the touch on such downcast mornings. Morning frost creeps through the cell's slatted bars, embedded high into the top of the room, a good twelve foot up and brushing the lip of where the wall meets the ceiling.

It is through this minute space that she (well _they_ ) often finds an escape. Not a literal escape, for the gap is decidedly small and unwilling to relent to any of her sparse tools, tucked into the folds of her clothing and knotted into the strands of her hair. But her companion, the man with who she occupies this bitter cell, has a variety of curious tricks that, once she had embarked to earn his tentative trust, he was glad to share with her. Nott had never encountered magic amongst her Clan, but she had heard fantastic tales of accursed Warlocks and haggard, deformed creatures that roved the hills, consumed and terrible. The true extent of her knowledge was limited and vague, snippets of stories that they had told each other as children to transform the woods into some terrible unknown horror.

Nott knew of fairy circles, was well enough aware that she should avoid any groves home to plump toadstools less she invite some curse into her being. She was also familiar with the dewy black eyes of ravens and how they could pry into your mind and entangle your darkest secrets. All in all, what Nott knew of magic had seemed dreadfully cruel, enough so that she was surprised that her Clan did not manipulate it more.

Then she had discovered Caleb.

Initially she had not even noticed his consort with the profane, he was too thin, always darkened with bruises that caused his eyes to seem like hollows against his pale skin and she had assumed he was some unfortunate thief. He was almost a child, lost beneath the folds of his too large tunic, knuckles scraped and raw. Nott looked at the boy and could see no malformations there, no industrious, vile magics tarnishing his person.

Perhaps, she thinks, her dismissal of his ability is what frightened her so much, when she finally discovered his secret. Because as the weeks blurred into infuriating swirls of events and routine, Nott had poured her attentions to grooming Caleb to her favour, if only just for something to pass her time with. It took her three days of insistent questioning, of passing water and convincing him to drink, of attempting to smile and then smiling through his involuntary flinch at each baring of her teeth, for him to share his name.

He had seemed almost lost until he disclosed it to her, his voice groggy with disuse. So Nott began to call him Caleb and with the name Caleb grew a little clearer in the eye each day, more present, more willing to share stories with her. It was difficult to dampen the encroaching fondness that swelled in her chest each time Caleb would smile at her, scarcely a quirk of his mouth but an attempt nonetheless, and when one evening he had beckoned her to his side by her name, eager thrill colouring his words, Nott did not hesitate to crawl up into the cot at his side.

“Nott, what I am about to show you is important.” Caleb had told her, seemingly breathless in the giddy way of eager children. Nott, for a brief moment, wondered if he had somehow found a shank. She opened her mouth to say as much, to begin some familiar banter between them, but in that moment Caleb moved his hand in some eloquent, ornate gesture and she almost choked on her tongue.

Perched on the edge of Caleb’s extended finger was a small, plump robin.

Nott blinked at the bird, watching as it blinked at her in turn. She turned her gaze very seriously upon Caleb and she could feel the uncanny way her face was tense with confusion.

“...Can we eat it?” She asked, shortly. 

Caleb’s smile faltered, and he retracted his hand very seriously to his side. He placed a hand on her shoulder, something that he was rare to actually indulge in but Nott would notice him often suppress the want to do it, he would always catch his wandering hands at the last moment and fold them into his pockets.

“What? No-” Caleb gave a dismissive wave and with the fluid motion the bird fluttered soundlessly up to perch at their barred skylight. “It is a familiar, he is my friend.”

“Right.” Nott stammered, and found that her hands were shaking with nervous fear. She, in that moment, desperately missed the soothing crutch of whiskey, the numbing shroud of disorientation that would make her forget that she was watching magic. “And if you can’t eat it, what does this thing do?”

“Well he can help us see the outside.” Caleb frowned, and with an imploring nod of his head the red-crested bird disappeared through the gaps in the iron bars. She watched as Caleb scowled, lips pursed, and she felt as if she were standing on the cusp of a conversation, as if a tremendous debate was being hosted entirely in Caleb’s own head.

And so, despite their escapism being figurative, Nott is decidedly fond of Caleb. This unexpected endearment is not necessarily something that she is averse to, in fact, she actually revelled the idea of having a real friend again. It is difficult, however, on this drear morning in which she peers across the murk of their cell to see Caleb sobbing in his cot.

Caleb has always been emotional in the time that she has known him, prone to bitter bouts of melancholy. But there is something about the curious sniffing, poorly suppressed and heavy, that sets Nott’s nerves on edge. She hunches closer to herself and wills the moment to pass, allowing the man his privacy.

It is only when half an hour must simmer between them that Nott finally summons some unfounded courage to step down from her bed and to pad slowly to Caleb’s side. She looks down on his bed and finds that he is facing the high ceiling, his eyes are red rimmed and damp and his face is twisted into a sneer that truly frightens her.

“Are you alright, Caleb?” She asks despite knowing the redundancy of her question.

Caleb blinks towards her, mouth contorting into some odd, pained grimace as he attempts to smile. He does not appear to have the ability to conjure any words for her, and so Nott very gently clambers onto his bedside, resting a breadth away and placing what she hopes is a comforting hand against his shoulder.

“It will pass; it always passes.” Caleb murmurs, and there is an uneasy, breathless lilt to his tone. “It just hurts, too.”

“Okay.” Nott whispers, squeezing his shoulder until her fingertips ache. She is not familiar with magics and she does not know what terrible things the fantastic tendrils of the universe can do to a simple human body. Nott is not especially gifted with healing touches, so she sits with Caleb, running her hand hesitantly across the coarse leather of his coat and whispers nonsense stories to him until his shaking subsides.

Caleb never shares with her what pained him on that day in their cell, but after they grow closer, after she meets Mollymauk, she feels that she could give it a particularly good guess.

 -----

Laying in the mounds of snow does nothing to numb his pain.

He is intimately aware of his breathing, of the rattling creak of his chest, rising to a wheezing crescendo like a steam pipe growing over hot. He feels the beat of his heart press against his abdomen, insistent and terrible.

For a curious moment he blinks up at the pale, void sky above him and feels a blissful disconnect, a terrifying breach from his own body. Then, abruptly, Jester’s hand finds his shoulder and Caleb is wrung with such tremendous pain it feels that he has been splashed with acid, seeping into his blood and coursing his veins with an angry heat.

“Caleb.” She cries, and her voice sounds sullen and distant, as if she is speaking to him through a mouthful of cotton. Her visage dips into his vision, distorted and bright, her stunning blue skin almost encompassing. Caleb squints as her hands find his cheeks, cupping his head backwards. “What have you done? What have you done?”

It is a fruitless effort, but for a moment Caleb opens his mouth to retort, to spit out that he has done _nothing._ His word is suffocated by a violent pulse in his chest, abrupt and terrible, and he grimaces and tries to crane his head against Jester’s hold.

“Molly-” He manages to sputter, his voice drawn into a pathetic wheeze, rattling like the curious chirrup of a cricket.

In a moment of clarity he notes the way that her eyes widen, a flash of movement as she glances over her shoulder, and then she is hovering above him once more, easing him to lay back in the snow.

“I know, but, we just need to get you stable-” She chatters, smoothing one hand across his forehead and Caleb is startled to notice the cool press of her hand against the molten, smarmy sweat that has accumulated near his hairline. His skin feels as if he is pressed against one of the large brass cauldrons that would hang above his mother’s hearth, unassuming but frightfully scalding.

Something abstract washes over him then, chilling like a bout of frigid steam. Caleb feels his vision flicker, the sky above consumed by an intrepid blackness and when he again regains his focus Jester is still talking, as if she has always been talking, and Caleb feels where her hands now press against his injury, no longer holding his face.

“-it may sting just a touch, but if you think of something nice instead and it’ll be over before you ever really notice-” She is warning, and then Caleb feels a nip, harsh like a needle prick, probe against his shoulder. He is unfamiliar with the carnal warmth of healing magics, but the divine incantation fizzes in the air between them, blistering across his skin.

Caleb swallows against it, attempts to heed her instruction, but a present thought presses insistently against his mind. If he is suffering this agony alone what pains is Mollymauk now enduring?

“Jester.” Caleb insists, biting the word out on the heavy tails of a desperate exhale. His breath forms a mist between them. “I’ll be alright. You need to get him, Mollymauk, please.”

He attempts to force himself up on his forearms, pressing insistently against the bolstered touch of Jester’s hands. There is some quaint, golden glow encompassing her fingertips, like the glisten of a firefly, and Caleb squints beyond it, trying to find a familiar streak of purple against their drear surroundings.

“Caleb, stop-” Jester pleads, placing her hand more firmly against his chest. Caleb grunts at the abrupt pain that rolls through him at the touch, but he still desperately cranes his neck, attempting to glance the remnants of the battlefield behind her.

For it must just be the barren bones of the encounter now, because through the swelling pulse of blood in his ears Caleb cannot hear anything, only the disdainful cry of the wind and the mournful, ensuing silence.

It is fitting, almost as if the town is bemoaning their presence.

“Caleb, lie back down, now.” Nott hisses, and Caleb instantly flickers his gaze to the source of her voice. He finds her hunched in the snow to his right, hands folded awkwardly in her lap and her shrouded mantle tattered at the edges and stained with a shocking crimson splash; it is caked and faded, as if the blood has had ample time to dry.

“Nott.” Caleb croaks, desperately. His fingers twitch sporadically and entirely involuntarily, overwhelmed with the need to reach out to her. “Where is he?”

Her eyes narrow into intensely skittish slits, her gaze wandering guiltily away from his face. Then, with a violent jerk, as if the motion was a discarded afterthought to her, she pulls her silver flask from her hip and flicks open the lid with a click. Caleb stares at her intently, willing her to meet his eye, desperate for her to say something, anything to still the torrential worry that is brewing in his chest, he opens his mouth and is rendered silent as she extends the flask to him.

That motion should be answer enough, but Caleb is terrified and damp with his own blood and so he extends one of his cramped, shaking hands to take the flask. When he presses it to his lips he feels an intense burn against his chest, where the wound was punctured deepest, and he supposes that Jester must be using his distraction to hurry through her work, Caleb would be inclined to do the same, were he in her position. He takes two long sips of the bitter liquid and as it washes over his gammy tongue his body shudders with a violent sickness: it is the rhubarb gin from the bar downstairs.

He jerkily passes the flask back to Nott who cradles it to her chest with both hands.

Jester’s fingers are ghosting across his skin, weaving some soothing incantation to mend his flesh back together. Caleb closes his eyes to the grizzly vision of his chest and shoulder, painted a stark crimson and glistening with dewy blood. He works to breathe through his nose, long, steady huffs of air that serve to drown out the wet wheeze of his lungs.

“Oh no.” He hears Jester whine, and when he blinks towards her he discovers a pointed frown contorting her face, her lip is sucked between her pointed teeth and she is worrying it until bruised. “Caleb, this may hurt but I will try to make it not so bad.”

Caleb would respond, he thinks quite surely, if it were not for a rolling crash of pain hitting him, leaving him breathless and blotting his vision like a spilled inkwell. He thinks that he may rasp out a pathetic response, for he feels a heavy exhale on his tongue, but he does not hear the words as the world is lost to him once more.

 -----

The world allows him brief flashes of events. Caleb will find himself blinking, dazed and incomprehensibly numb, into focus, just for a sliver of a moment in which he can distinguish the pale face of Jester or the interlocking lattice of pine needles above him. He is aware of hands supporting his shoulder and an arm hooked beneath his legs; often he will be jostled into consciousness and the sky above him will be more visible, a striking blue.

He must be in a dreadful state if Jester is having to carry him, Caleb thinks in a vivid moment of clarity.

 -----

There was, in one of their stowaway homes, a candle without a wick. At the top of the mound of ivory wax there was a slight indentation that suggested the length of string had been taken for whatever reason. Caleb was not entirely certain as to what it would have been used for, but he could not find anything suitable to act as its replacement. He and Nott were not particularly perturbed that the candle could not be burned, as they often had more pressing issues to attend to, such as whether they would have sufficient food to eat that night or enforcing any enchantments to keep the Crownsguard at bay.

Sometimes, however, Caleb would idly pluck up the candle and smell it. Often it was a habit borne of his wandering mind, a want for something pleasant to draw on his senses. It was surprisingly well made, for being sat atop a dusty old shelf in an abandoned port side cottage. It would emit the enticing smell of vanilla and pear, slightly tart and entirely refreshing, enough that it would overpower the stale stench of mud that clung to him like a miasma.

It is this peculiar smell, of light vanilla and a lingering hint of acrid fruit, that Caleb wakes up to.

His vision returns to him gradually, smothered in part by the abrasive throbbing of his temple. He is beneath the soft linen of a quilt, staring up at the crosshatch beams that run along the length of the ceiling of his room. Caleb sighs heavily, realising that he is once more bundled in his bed at the Pit Pony Inn. A quaint relief washes over him, like swallowing a desperately needed glass of water, it feels almost as if a homecoming.

There is crick that has burrowed into the joint between his shoulder and his collar and it pops cruelly as Caleb cranes his neck to glance about the room. The lantern is set upon the desk, casting a low light and throwing curling, wispy shadows across the expanse of the walls. He makes out the impression of Nott, hunched in the high backed chair with her spindly legs tucked beneath her. A book is open in her lap but Caleb cannot sense any movement from her, only the shallow, even rise and fall of her chest.

It is the second figure that rests his breath from his lungs.

Mollymauk is hunched over the base of the bed, curled into an impossibly small ball. Caleb cannot make out anything from his current perspective, only that Mollymauk is breathing (and an excited, heavy relief washed over him at the sight) the man is wearing a billowing black shirt, likely Yasha’s, and that he appears to be asleep.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Caleb holds the breath and eases himself up onto his elbows. His body, although sore and the muscles taught, gives no immediate protest to his movement, so Caleb gradually works himself up until he is leaning against the headrest. His head feels clouded, rife with exhaustion in the way he would often find himself after evenings spent pouring over his books and papers, his eyes perhaps too bleary. There is some palpable tension coating the room, thick like molasses, and Caleb thinks that he is worried to disturb his friends in the consuming stretch of silence.

For a few moments he allows himself to bolster his composure, watching the wispy movement of the shadows against the far wall as they are distorted by the flame, almost as if merry spirits dancing their delight. Then, hesitantly, almost a child fearing the reproach of his parents, he glances down to his exposed chest.

His shirt is gone and he smooths his fingertips across a dewy pink scar that begins at his shoulder and carves a path down his pectoral, stopping just shy of the first of his prominent ribs. Healing magics never fail to instil some terrible disgust in him, the abstract wrongness of it all. He touches the numb skin again, almost desperate to entice some ache, some feeling from the wound, but it remains reluctantly plain. Almost as if the injury never happened, almost as if his brush with death was a fleeting thing, unimportant.

Caleb is swallowing back a dry, aching lump in his throat when he finally retracts his hand. Although being spared the terrors of the injury is a mercy that he is immensely thankful for, Caleb is not fond of being forced back together by some industrious magics. Because, although the wound may be banished from him, reduced only to a tender scar to remind him of the terror, the emotional upset is still present, a weight like wrought iron pressing against his chest.

Abruptly, his vision blurs and Caleb bitterly scrubs at his eyes with his knuckles, willing away the tears. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until his vision is blotted with a thousand sparkling dots, holding himself steady until he is certain that the wetness has passed.

“Do you need a drink?” A voice rasps at him and Caleb flinches, violently. He hesitantly pulls his hands away, folding them together like a knot in his lap. His nose is stuffed and his voice is thick and weary when he replies.

“Cider?” He offers, sniffing.

“Absolutely not, we have water.” Mollymauk grouses, although his voice is ringing with his usual bravado there is some hesitant, upset undertone. “You’re getting water.”

“I don’t want water.” Caleb murmurs, voice sticking in his throat. He feels very much a child in that moment, hurting and bruised, curled into himself and face puffy with recently shed tears.  

Mollymauk does not reply. The man stands, uncurling from where he was hunched at the base of the bed and Caleb notes the sockets of purple bruises beneath his eyes, heavy and unpleasant. He seems composed, clean, although his hair is clumped with sweat, and despite this impression Caleb cannot prevent himself from imagining the shock of crimson blood against his jaw.

Caleb blinks and scrubs at his eyes again.

There is the resounding thunk of the water basin being disturbed, muffled as if Mollymauk is being hesitant. Then, in the ensuing silence Caleb hears the gentle slosh of water being poured. Mollymauk circles the bed to sit by Caleb’s side, sitting close enough that Caleb can feel the impression of his warmth against his thigh. The man offers him a tankard, topped up with fresh water and Caleb blinks at it sternly before hesitantly pulling it into his grasp.

He sips it slowly, if only to allow himself an escape from talking to Mollymauk.

“You seem alright, yourself.” Caleb offers after a moment, speaking to his distorted reflection over the hem of his cup.

“Oh.” Mollymauk blinks, idly raising a hand to rub small circles against his chest, where Caleb knows the blade had bitten into him. “Well, Jester did what she could, and I have a remarkably high pain tolerance on top of that anyway-”

Caleb interrupts the man with a bitter, unkind scoff. He catches the long long Mollymauk gives him, a crease forming between his brow as he frowns.

“I’m more concerned with what happened to you, personally.” Mollymauk continues, his voice is intentionally low, an effort to prevent Nott from waking, and Caleb finds himself drawn into leaning closer to the man in order to keep their conversation hushed.

“Tell me, Mollymauk, what do you think happened?” Caleb offers, taking another sip of the refreshing water. It is loosening his chest and relieving his dry throat. It is also providing him with a wonderful excuse to refrain from speaking.

Mollymauk frowns, nose twitching almost endearingly with the motion. Caleb finds, startlingly, that he is not angry at the man. He is frustrated that they were injured and he is scathing that it happened due to Mollymauk’s brash, foolhardy nature, but he must also acknowledge the terrible horror that seized him at the thought of Mollymauk being dead.

He cannot feel so strongly about someone that he hates.

“I- I know that, that those are mine.” Mollymauk begins, his nervous hand appears before his chest, gesturing in a crude circle across the expanse of Caleb’s bare, scarred chest. There is dark hair there, but thin tendrils and lacerations litter his skin like strokes of writing on parchment.

Caleb does not dignify the nervous comment with a response, rather, he sighs very deeply through his nose. There is some uncanny, disorientating tension in the timeless darkness of their room, the bare windowless walls stretch outwards around him and Caleb is rendered exhausted by being left so unsure. Mollymauk is watching him soundlessly, lips pursed together thinly.

“You mentioned that earlier.” Caleb snipes, and does not miss the way that Mollymauk’s eyes wince in the intimate distance between them.

“Caleb, I-” Mollymauk starts, and there is a pert tension in his tone, as if the words are being wrestled from his throat. “-I don’t understand.”

Caleb blinks very slowly, the words bring with them some austere numbness, leaving him barren of any heated anger. Now, he sits quite pathetically, nursing his wounds and with a hollow, unpleasant chill nipping at his heart. For there is quite a lot that Mollymauk does not know, and Caleb, although upset, regrets his scathing words. No one deserves scorn for something they know nothing of, Caleb should know that at least, considering all that he has done.

“I can only try my best to explain it.” Caleb offers, weakly, dropping his gaze to the folds of the blankets beneath them. “But first, I would ask that you give me some honestly, and that you answer me a question.”

“Anything.” Mollymauk breathes, easily. His hands are folded together, and Caleb can see how they tremble despite grappling one another. Caleb sighs, very softly, and ignores the terrified tension that is collecting in the irritable crook of his neck.

He feels that he is about to ask something incredibly foolish. He is certainly about to ask something very childish-

“Mollymauk, what are you doing here?” A voice interrupts, and Caleb straightens his back with a flinch, adopting a formless military posture that irritates his healing flesh. He glances to the only other occupant in the room, Nott, still curled haphazardly in the chair but scowling with such intensity that her large, luminous eyes are narrowed into slits.

“-Nott.” Mollymauk starts, and there is a lilt in his tone, just a minor tremor of worry that has a nausea burning in Caleb’s gut.

“Get out! I told you to get the fuck out of here!” Nott hisses, clambering up, enticing a scratching tear from the old chair as her talons click on the fabric. “You can’t just keep doing this, you did this to him! You almost killed him!”

Such prominent tension stifles the room that Caleb almost chokes on it, feeling the greasy tendrils mute him from all but an aborted, displeased grunt. Nott’s voice is taught with tension, but there is an abominable fury to the tight lines of her shoulders, a violent quake where her hands are balled into fists. Caleb turns to Mollymauk, who is staring at her with a trembling mouth, pulled straight and failing to feign neutrality.

Caleb wants to reach out to him, he feels a pulse of _need_ overwhelm him. He needs to diffuse this, to soothe Mollymauk of his worries. But then the man is unfurling from the bed, springing away as if seared like a brand, and he backs away as Nott advances.

Mollymauk is confused. Caleb can read it plainly in the stoop of his shoulders and the furrow of his brow, the hesitant way he opens his mouth to speak only to clamp it resolutely shut again. More than the confusion there, however, he is so incredibly hurt, his lips are twisting into odd contortions and his nose twitches as if attempting to ward of the upset.

“Nott.” Caleb warns, very quietly.

“No, Caleb.” She starts, and Caleb realises that this is perhaps the first instant in which she has directly dismissed him about something so important, with no room for their usual compromise. “He needs to get the fuck out before he ruins anything else.”

Mollymauk makes a startled, breathy noise at that, and without a word, he ushers passed the bed and out of the room. Caleb feels the man’s name on his tongue, familiar and warm, but he does not call it. Instead, in the ensuing, aching silence, Caleb turns his gaze onto Nott, who is perched on the edge of the bed, watching him wordlessly.

“He needs to learn that he can’t do these things! It’s not fair, Caleb. I told you, I’ve seen these relationships before, and it’s parasitic when it’s like this, he’ll just use you, again and again until you break and that’s not fair.” Nott’s words, once forged with her steel anger have turned soft and damp, and she shuffles closer to him until her weight rests against his thigh. “You’re not a shield, you’re not a thing! You’re my friend and I can’t- I can’t let that happen to you.”

“Nott.” Caleb says, very softly, and is not surprised to find a damp croak suffocating his voice. He rests a hand very softly atop hers and she clutches it desperately, turning it in her grasp.

“You’re my family, Caleb. And I’m never going to let anyone hurt you, no matter what it takes.”

“I love him.” Caleb says, abruptly. It came simply, a pressing thought at the forefront of his mind, it does not even feel as if it is a confession, simply a passing statement that he is far too weary to pry into. He has not been in love since Astrid, but he can recall the feeling well, and he is not too coward to name it.

“You.. oh. Oh, Caleb.” Nott squeaks, not displeased, but nervous, her large eyes widening almost feline as she blinks up at him. “I thought that he, that he was harassing you? You told me all these things about your scars and then you showed up with all these injuries!”

“Well, that is not entirely the case.” Caleb offers, scrunching his face into a pathetic smile that Nott meets with wide, fearful eyes.

“Caleb!” She squeaks, her free hand flying up to cup the curve of her own cheek. “I told him that I would cut his tail off! I meant it too, he probably thinks - he probably hates me- I - You need to get better at talking to people.”

“I will endeavour to work on that.” He relents, heaving a sigh that takes with it a monumental amount of worry; to have spoken with Nott is incredibly soothing.

“So…” Caleb offers, thoughtlessly twining a stray tendril of her hair around the curve of his finger. “His tail?” 

Nott sighs, insufferably, and makes a poor attempt to swat his probing hands away. “I was mad, Caleb, I couldn’t think I was so worried and he tried to come to you? To touch you I think, just to see you even, and I was furious, so, so angry and I just shouted anything and everything I could to keep him away.”

“He’s been to see me?” Caleb asks, startled, and then, he continues: “How long have we been back?”

“Just about two days now. You’ve slept pretty solidly. Sometimes you would wake up but it wasn’t _really_ you, just your body, you wouldn't talk, just blink and look around and then fall back to sleep.” Nott offers, and a grimace contorts her face, marring it. “Jester has to come in and roll you every couple of hours so you don’t get sores, she’s teaching me how to do it too!”

Caleb, for a brief moment, is overwhelmed with a wave of genuine gratitude for these people, and he is momentarily rendered silent by just how far they have come. A family indeed.

Their contemplative silence is disturbed only moments later by a brief rapping against the door, which is opened to reveal Jester. Her hair is pulled back with a ribbon and although she grins tremendously at him her eyes are dark and sleepless.

“I was told that you were awake!” She greets, clearing the floor to his side in a few eager strides.

“Thank you.” Caleb tells her and she blinks at him for a moment as if confused before she waves a hand dismissively, ringing with the clinking of bangles and baubles.

“Well I couldn’t just let you die.” She says, spry. “Come on now, Caleb.”

She hovers by his side, hands folded to her sternum as if she is cradling something or perhaps ready to recite a prayer; but Caleb knows that her hands are empty and that the Traveller has no set words, and so she is holding back some question from him.

“Oh boy, I sure hope that no one addresses the elephant in this room.” Nott barks, and Caleb is left utterly impressed by her tact.

“Fine.” Caleb grumbles, turning to face Jester fully. “You healed my wound.”

“I did!” Jester nods, simply. Then, glancing at Caleb with a long, imploring look, she shrugs. “I had gathered, I think, that you were both up to something. I grew up around people who were looking for that sort of stuff, and I think that I have a knack for knowing when people really like each other, you know?”

“You can predict relationships?” Caleb asks, and Jester grins brazenly at him.

“Yes! Very well. I could tell that Beau fancied Yasha like, immediately.”

“ _Wow._ ” Nott draws out, rife with sarcasm. “That is impressive.”

“I know.” Jester gleams, voice weighted with her delight. “And I could tell that Molly like-liked you, like that one time, at Zadash-”

“Jester, I appreciate it, and I am sure that you are good at foretelling these things - but I meant my wound, the connection-” Caleb interrupts, upset to have disrupted her tangent, because he quite enjoys Jester’s stories, for they always carry with them some jubilant energy.

“Oh, right. Well, I just sort of healed it. It was worse on you than it was on Molly, but that is how these things work, is it not?” She shrugs, perturbed, as if she does not quite understand his confusion. Caleb scrunches his brow more, narrowing his gaze at her.

“You know about this bond?” He asks, and finds his breath catching eagerly in his throat.

“I know about all the soulmate bonds, Caleb! As a girl I had a library of books on them all, my favourites are the cases where the couple have matching runes on the inside of their wrists, honestly. But yes, I know about the injury deflection.” Her tone, once lax melds gradually into concern as she continues, pinning Caleb with a look that darkens her soft eyes.

“Do you not know about it?”

“We did not have many books on the topic, where I grew up.” Caleb dismisses, knowing that his only experience with the bond was defined purely through fantastic fables, composed of romanticism and fiction.

“That explains a lot.” Jester replies, softly.

She takes his silence as invitation to perch on the cusp of the bed, dipping it beneath her weight. There is no hesitation to her nature, and so she shrugs simply, as if discarding a heavy weight from her shoulders, and smiles.

“Well now you do know!” She offers, as if it is that remarkably simple. “Now you know that you don’t need to suffer with those things, and Caleb, I am so terribly sorry that you had to.”

“Just regular magic?” He murmurs, and although she needs to duck closer in order to catch his words she nods eagerly.

“Good old magic and lots and lots of rest.” She mimics, pertly.

“We don’t have time for rest-” Caleb argues, and his body is racked with an onslaught of heavy exhaustion, enough to dampen his grip on consciousness. “That, that woman with the robes, she wasn’t the last of them, was she?”

Jester worries her lip between her teeth once more; a sure indication of trouble.

“It’s not a major problem right now.” She soothes, although her eyes do not quite meet his own. Perhaps, he thinks, she is so used to him not being willing to meet her gaze that she no longer attempts it. “Fjord knows where their leader is, and he isn’t one for moving around. We'll sort it out.”

“You have time to rest, Caleb.” Nott insists, and her hand squeezes his own where they still rest joined between them. "Let us finish this for you."

“Alright.” He sighs, dejectedly. Caleb dislikes feeling as if he is weighing them down, being expendable in such a way always causes his skin to tingle with anxiety. He has a purpose to serve to them, and sitting in a bed nursing wounds will not earn him any favours, especially when they are likely still so irritated with him after his outburst.

His outburst, Caleb realises with a start, did not stop them from carrying him half dead back into his bed, it did not prevent them from tending his wounds and keeping him bitter but alive. Despite being incapacitated and rendered utterly useless they brought him home all the same.

Caleb, bleary and aching, does not know what to do with that snippet of information, and so he tucks it away to be picked at when he is appropriately lightened by booze and less likely to break into further tears in front of his peers.

Jester takes a few moments to look over his wounds, inspecting the scar tissue with a clinical eye and confident motions. Nott shifts only a tiny distance to allow Jester ease in her work, and she becomes almost a sentinel at the base of the bed, watching Caleb as if he is to keel over and die were she to look away from him. Only brief banter flutters between them, something tossed our about Jester being too fond of touching Caleb’s chest, then something else about a chest she would much rather be touching (definitely green but decidedly not Nott’s). There is a moment where she invites Caleb to stand, to help reduce bed sores, and although his knees greatly protest his movement Jester supports him with an arm hooked around his own, as if they are a couple of rich dandies heading into town. Nott laughs at them all the while, so he must suppose that they don’t quite look the part for it.

She leaves him a shirt, a grey bundle stolen from Fjord that smells raw like sea brine. Mollymauk’s shirt was left desecrated, apparently, tarnished with blood and pulled at the seams in Jester’s hurry to tend his wounds. Caleb makes a mental note to buy himself more clothes before they leave this town less he ends up pilfering everyone’s wardrobes. After Caleb dresses and regains his composure some Jester bids him a goodnight, which allows Caleb to develop at least a better understanding on the time of day, if not as specific as he would prefer.

Caleb, still exhausted by the mental strain and the physical toll of being impaled by a phantom blade, lays back down the moment she leaves them. Nott curls to his side, like a feline, and Caleb briefly toys with the thought of summoning Frumpkin before dismissing it; he is too worn even to dip into that plain.

So, in the dancing lantern light of the room he stares solemnly at the ceiling. Nott must succumb to her own weary body, for within a few minutes she is breathing deep and raspy by his side. He desperately wants to join her, to sleep off the aches until he is able to get back in amongst their task, but his mind is radiating with stress and it is keeping his eyes resolutely glued to the old wooden panels of the ceiling.

His thoughts are drawn to Mollymauk, the man who was tired and hurt and curled at Caleb’s bedside despite having faced so much worse himself. Caleb wonders briefly where he is right in that moment, because this is their room and Nott has clearly banished him from it. Caleb wants, in that moment, to look at the man and to know that he is safe, that he is okay, that although he likely loathes Caleb, that he is breathing.

Caleb wants to see him, and the thought is disorientating in its urgency. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is brought to you by Heaven Is A Place On Earth (10 hour version)

Caleb is stepping out of bed without processing the action, he only truly realises that he has moved when his feet press against the bitterly cold planked floor. He finds his socks bunched at the base of the bed and so he pulls them on silently before padding out of the door, making a conscious effort not to disturb Nott.

The hallway is dark, darker than he had truly expected, being lit only by the creeping light that radiates up from the parlour. In the darkness the stairwell appears almost to be the mouth of a brimming furnace, blindingly orange. Caleb looks helplessly along the hallway, eyeing each indistinguishable room, and the creeping shadows that hang solemnly in the corners send an uncanny chill down his spine. So he glances at each door before shrugging helplessly and heading for the stairs, if anything he could ask the barmaid for information on where Mollymauk is holding up.

He clutches the banister on the way down, leaning too heavily on the old, rickety wood. The fire crackles softly in the expansive room, which is entirely void of patrons or warmth, the splendid colour from the flames barely touch the corners of the room, setting a heady, oppressive glow about him. Through the windows Caleb can see the black, empty sky. Even the stars have made themselves scarce.

If it were not for the single figure hunched against the bar, Caleb would think that the entire town had just up and left.

His heart lodges itself precariously against his throat as he approaches Mollymauk, and his chest burns cold at the sight of him curled around a bottle of something sour smelling, eyes lidded but breathing unnaturally heavy. A wary terror is attempting to burrow into him, this looming conversation has about it an air of finality, whether that it to amount to something worthwhile or whether Caleb will divide them for good it is yet to be determined. Yet, the stark moonlight is soothing, for there is always some canny, quaint peace that the night brings, like a shroud of comfort in which people can say foolish things without fear. With this curious reassurance, Caleb presses on.

“You really should not be drinking.” Caleb starts, wincing as his voice carries in the vacant room. The sloop of Mollymauk’s shoulders jump with tension, and the man very slowly eases himself up into a sitting position, legs tucked up beneath the tall stool. Caleb sets himself quite heavily on the stool beside him, and in the ensuing silence they blink at each other in the firelight.

“It makes me feel better.” Mollymauk relents, twirling the glass bottle eloquently between his fingers. There is a ripple of liquid as he offers the acrid smelling drink to Caleb.

“Alright.” Caleb sighs, gently accepting the bottle. Their fingers brush for a moment but Caleb discovers that there is no thrill to it, only a heavy, tired sort of comfort, like when he brushes his thumb against the soft fabric sewn to the inside of his coat. Of course there is a tension, he had expected it to be suffocating, but despite it all there is still some relief that washes across him whenever he is alone with Mollymauk.

The man is in disarray. His hair is knotted and his face is speckled with sleep-deprived bruises and the usual pocking that emerges when you are run down into the dirt. His shirt is unlaced and Caleb drags his eyes tiredly across his collarbones and the length of his throat.

Caleb takes a sip from the bottle, still warm from Mollymauk’s touch, and he drinks.

There is a rattle then, the sound of a flighty clattering against the bar top, and Caleb glances upwards to see Mollymauk toying with a smooth, black pebble, looking entirely dejected.

“Remember when you were a child and your mother would make you do something you never wanted to?” Caleb begins, his voice hoarse with that abstract, nameless tension. Mollymauk stills his movements, presumably watching him from the corners of those hollow eyes. “Once, when I was very young, I accidentally tore a girl’s dress when we were playing. She was fine with it, she never really liked it anyway, but I remember that my mother was so very embarrassed about the whole ordeal.”

“Yeah?” Mollymauk prompts when Caleb falls momentarily silent, splaying his fingers around the bottle.

“She told me that I would have to knock on their door and apologise.” Caleb cannot suppress his grimace at the memory, or the wave of chastised embarrassment that still burns the nape of his neck. “Her dad was pretty rich, as far as a man in my town could be, and I don’t know, I guess I thought that he would open the door to some dirty little boy and -” Caleb shrugs, banishing away the memory with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“It doesn’t matter, I just mean that right now, I know that we need to talk but I do not know how to begin.”

“You are quite good at talking when it is not about the important things.” Mollymauk says, the words following the tail of a sigh. He ceases drumming his fingers against the surface of the counter and snatches up the smooth pebble, finally turning to face Caleb. Even though he is haggard and a little rough, the sight of him freezes Caleb’s breath in his chest just for a moment.

Caleb smiles, a minimal flash of his teeth. The man is watching him with large, expectant eyes, and Caleb can only remain silent, because it is is not that he does not want to speak the man, rather he can feel the words pressing insistently against the back of his teeth. Truly, he is held back only by how dreadfully terrified he is by what will happen if he does speak.

“So…” Mollymauk swings his feet childishly in the space between them. “You had a question for me?”

“A question?” Caleb mimics without thought, setting the bottle down on the bar counter. Then he recalls their sparse discussion and he groans. “Ja, a question. When we talk about this, will you - do you promise that you will not hate me?”

“Wow.” Mollymauk smiles, nudging Caleb’s foot with his own, softly. “Would you like to pinkie promise it or is my word enough?”

Mollymauk sets the pebble on the bar surface with a clink, and with a flick of his finger he sends it spinning over to Caleb, who stops it with a thumb and picks it up. His entire body is warm with nervous energy and so he squeezes the pebble in a desperate bid to calm himself.

“Hey, Caleb, you do realise that there is very little that you could do to make me think less of you, right? You are a stubborn and very strange man, but a good one all the same.” Mollymauk whispers, and Caleb feels some part of his resolve give to the tender tone of his voice. He huffs a pathetic noise, wounded and happy, and he looks very resolutely at the pebble in his hand, held aloft enough to allow him to watch Mollymauk from the peripheral of his vision.

“You are my soulmate.” He says to the silence.

The words carry with them some searing, oppressive dread. Caleb can feel the pulse of blood murmur like a mantra in his ears and Mollymauk does not reply. Their silence is drawn out for perhaps too long, tense and incredibly awkward.

“I mean, I do like you a lot, but are you sure of this?” Mollymauk starts, and Caleb’s tender, nervous trilling is replaced instead by a hollow ache. Even though he had expected rejection, he had prepared himself for it for his entire life, it still hurts bitterly.

“I-.” Caleb bites, surprised to silence by the dampness festering in his throat. “It is not really up for debate.”

Finally, fuelled in part by the pent up frustrations and all of those distorted, bitter emotions from his childhood, Caleb extends his arm to Mollymauk, and rolls up his sleeve to the elbow to present his scarred skin to the man. He watches as Mollymauk follows the curve of his body with his eyes, how his mouth opens softly even as his brow creases with confusion.

“This one you gave me when I was fourteen, and it bled for three hours even though I compressed it.” Caleb bites out, pointing at a haggard, ugly length of scar tissue that runs along his forearm.

Mollymauk makes an aborted, broken noise as he looks at it. Then, with his large, nervous hands, he rolls up his own sleeve and presents a matching scar bisecting his flesh. It is distorted by the inks of his tattoos but Caleb knows where to look for it and he can easily distinguish the thin line hidden amongst the ornate, painted finery.

“What caused it?” Caleb asks with a voice that is surprisingly hard.

“I don’t know.” Mollymauk breathes, and his words are distorted by uneasy jitters. Caleb frowns, spurned by the dismissal. He would have expected honestly, if anything, from the man.

“Then what about this one?” Caleb probes, gesturing to a small, serrated scar that rests against the crook of his elbow. Mollymauk follows his gaze and grimaces.

“I don’t know.” Mollymauk repeats, and something in his voice breaks. Caleb does not focus on the wounded sound, or on how his words are damp with the threat of tears.

“How can’t you know?” Caleb hisses, feeling all at once that he has made some terrible, impulsive mistake. “These are your scars, something you did put them here and you’re telling me that you don’t know?”

“I just - I can’t remember, alright? Caleb, I am terribly sorry that this has happened to you, but if this is all about answers I’m afraid that I don’t have any for you.” Mollymauk stops speaking abruptly, running a hand nervously across his forehead.

“Answers?” Caleb starts, and when Mollymauk does not turn to look at him he glances down to where their feet are still treacherously leaning together and kicks the man in the ankle. Mollymauk flinches at the contact but does not shy away, instead he meets Caleb’s eye somewhat ashamed.

“Why would this be about answers? Did you listen to a word that I said? You and I? We are soulmates.” Caleb insists, throwing his hand in wild, incomprehensible gestures between them.

“Sorry.” Mollymauk says, and Caleb feels his tongue turn to cotton in his mouth. “I am so sorry.”

“Do not.” Caleb bites, abrupt and fuelled by a monstrous embarrassment. “Do not apologise to me.”

Still clutching the stone in a trembling hand, Caleb flattens it across his chest, feeling beneath his palm the warmth of his skin and the erratic pounding of his heart. He breathes deeply, bolstering himself and resigning to the natural reality of what he had always assumed would be:

Caleb’s soulmate does not love him. Not even Mollymauk, who makes him laugh and who combed eager fingers through his hair, could conjure up the will to love Caleb.

Bitterness burns his throat. An anger not directed at Mollymauk himself, but rather at Caleb for finding himself surprised, for allowing himself to become so vulnerable. A bitterness still in that he does not regret it. He would face the same heartache a thousand times over again if it meant he could press another kiss to Mollymauk’s lips.

“I would tell you if I could.” Mollymauk emphasises, and Caleb notes a nervous shaking of his hands.

“What could be stopping you?” Caleb bites, folding his arms back to his sides. Formerly a tiding between them, his mangled skin seems to almost weep like wax in the warm firelight, far too exposed. Mollymauk sighs softly, his nerves manifesting as a drumming of nails against the bar top like the clattering of hooves.

“Alright.” Mollymauk begins facing Caleb and appearing, for all that he is bold, as if a child cowering.

So Mollymauk tells him of everything of his past, and Caleb listens to it all, occasionally sipping from their shared bottle, throat terse and dry. He hears of Mollymauk’s amnesia, his corrupted memory and his intimacy with death. There are few words to be told of his life prior to his awakening, Mollymauk supposes that he once had parents and he knows that he somehow accumulated a collection of scars on his way to the grave. At one point, upon describing the suffocating earth pressing against his chest, Mollymauk’s voice cracks with wet emotion, and Caleb reaches across the bar to clasp his hand, squeezing tightly.

There are also a many pleasant things to be said, and Caleb, although his eyes are damp with pity, offers a profound smile. Mollymauk speaks of discovering the world anew, speaking with a childish sort of awe about wheat grass and mottled pheasants, of discovering the vast stars and realising their names. Eventually he twists their joined hands, lacing their fingers together, and continues a story about meeting a very rambunctious dog.

Mollymauk was dreadfully fond of that dog, apparently.

Eventually Mollymauk finishes his anecdotes with a tired sigh, moving as if to draw away. Caleb, without considering any other action, clutches their hands tighter together.

“You said that you would not hate me.” Caleb reminds, knowing that the creeping anxiety is turning his tone callous.

“Hate you? By the Gods Caleb you think that I hate you because of this? I could never - I, I mean, do you remember when we met?” He asks, and the abrupt turn of conversation leaves Caleb uneasy, so he nods simply.

“We were in that shit-hole tavern and you tried to flog your cards at us.” Caleb recalls, and his voice is warmed somewhat by the easy memory. Mollymauk had been captivating and eager, and Caleb had assumed that everyone had been as equally smitten by his extravagant nature, from his bright eyes to his thin lips and slightly crooked nose. A face that truly should not have been attractive but still amounted to something far too pleasing.

“I remember I looked at you and my first thought was that you must never of had a bath in your life.” He smiles, even as Caleb kicks him again. “Then I found that I couldn’t stop looking at you, that you were clever and quick and absolutely up to some devious shit and I wanted to be a part of that, that I wanted to be a part of something with you.”

“Easy there Molly, that is very nearly a confession.” Caleb murmurs, glumly. He can feel the impression of his heart, confused but relentlessly eager, beating away against his ribs.

“I can do you one better.” Mollymauk laughs, leaning forwards with a brazen smile plastered across his exhausted face.

“Can you now?” Caleb asks, startled and suffocated by his heart in his throat. 

“I loved you from the first moment you started ranting on about your books.” Mollymauk says, with such assurance that Caleb stumbles over the words, blinking helplessly before a crude smile teases his lips upwards.

“That was a few days after Toya.” He replies, helplessly giddy, and Mollymauk captures Caleb’s hand in one of his own, squeezing.

“Love at first sight is only lust, but if it means anything to you I would have absolutely invited you to my tent, were the circumstances any different.” Mollymauk sighs dramatically, smoothing his thumb across Caleb’s bruised knuckles.

“I would have refused you.” Caleb murmurs and Mollymauk barks a laugh, unexpectedly.

“And I would have worn you down eventually.” Mollymauk remarks, his tail wafting easily behind him, idle and free of tension. “I always find a way.”

Abruptly Caleb stands, discovering that in the compact space they share that his thighs press against Mollymauk’s knees. He raises his free hand to touch Mollymauk’s jaw tentatively, tracing nonsensical patterns against his too-warm skin, always smelling of citrus and brimstone. His touch leads upwards, flattening his palm against the man’s cheek he guides them together, closing all distance so that Caleb can rest their foreheads together. He does not close his eyes, he meets that crimson gaze steadfastly and ignores how the intensity causes his heart to flutter helplessly.

“I love you too, by the way. I thought that it would be appropriate for me to say it now rather than-”

Mollymauk silences his mutterings with a kiss. It is heated and desperate and Caleb folds into it, only frowning when Mollymauk breaks them apart again.

“If you give me a chance, I swear to the Gods that I will keep you from harm.” Mollymauk whispers, words brushing against his lips. It feels almost solemn, and Caleb smirks in response.

“A chance?” Caleb feigns disbelief, voice breathless. “Molly, I was not going to give you a choice, even.” Then, when Mollymauk’s face is still creased with confusion, he brings their lips together again.

In the enormous parlour of a rather distasteful tavern, still chilly with winter frost Caleb finds himself for once at peace with the prospect of a soulmate. Perhaps, he thinks while rather drunk on whiskey and affection, that Mollymauk and he will be able to make things work.

\-----

Caleb is dreadfully tired and a russet stain is clinging rather desperately to the lapel of his coat.

Driving the bandits from the Northern reaches of Kamordah had certainly been a far greater venture than any of the Nein had bargained for, but once the abhorrent conjurer and her monstrosity was slain there was left only snow and the occasional wolf up in the peaks. So they had journeyed back to the base of the mountains, Beauregard casting only a rude gesture to the retreating from of Yggsdril as their final farewell.

The Inn at the base of the mountains had heralded them well, not as heroes, nor even had they been recognised initially, but a guardsman had brought them their bounty and with it they had all bought a meal and a bath. So now Caleb is sitting in the washroom, hair damp and clinging to his forehead in tufts, brandishing a horsehair brush and willing his coat to rid itself of his bloodstains. Nott watches him from over the lip of the wooden tub, where she sits submerged.

“I think that you need a new coat.” She tells him, voice abruptly loud in the claustrophobic room. Caleb glances up to glare at her, but the distortion of the steam makes it difficult to make her out, so he waves the brush menacingly at her before resuming his erratic scrubbing.

“I like my coat.” Is his only response, and now his fingers are slightly pruned and turning a startling red from the abuse of his motions.

“We can find you a better coat, surely.” Mollymauk interrupts from where he is seated at Caleb’s side, delicately replacing all of his jewellery into knotted braids and pierced holes. Caleb glances at him appreciatively, taking in the slightly damp curl of his hair and the clean curve of his bare chest, admiring the bright splashes of ink clinging to him.

“ _Surely-_ ” Caleb mimics, drawing out his tone. “But I like this one.”

Mollymauk leans closer, and Caleb instinctively clutches the fabric of his coat in defence. But the man simply presses a hurried, smiling kiss to Caleb’s cheek and above the splashing of water Caleb hears Nott heave a dramatic wretch.

\-----

“ _Verdammt-_ ” Caleb hisses, jerking his hand violently to his side. He cradles it and in the dim flame of their campfire he inspects a fresh well of blood that is brewing at the point of his fingertip. Beauregard blinks at him, startled and mouth open as if to enquire about his sudden outburst, though she is abruptly silenced by a distant shout, resounding from within one of their travel tents.

“I am so sorry!” Mollymauk calls, urgent and voice growing clearer as the man emerges into the darkness of the evening. He quickly clears the expanse of their campsite, dropping to his knees and dragging his gaze frantically across Caleb’s face, as if he expects him to keel over from a slight cut. Mollymauk continues speaking, words spilling over one another in a nervous stammer. “I was cutting mushrooms with Nott and the knife slipped, I swear I didn’t mean to-”

Surprisingly it is Beauregard who silences him with a sharp smack to the back of his head, and although Caleb does not feel the impact he can at least emphasise with the man as he winces.

“Simmer down a little, man.” She huffs, clearly irked that their conversation was interrupted. “His finger’s still attached, you didn’t accidentally cut off his dick.”

Mollymauk still has about him a look of someone who is incredibly sheepish, his eyes wide and his face pale, and Caleb, although his finger stings terribly, cannot stand to see him so upset. Instead he drops his gaze down to Mollymauk’s own injured hand where a trickle of blood is trailing forgotten down the curve of his finger and, reaching out to take his hand, Caleb grasps it in his own gently.

He presses the curve of his palm around the wound, applying enough pressure to stunt the flow of blood. They simply stay like that, silence ensuring bar the creaking of the logs on the open fire and Beauregard’s disinterested leafing through one of Caleb’s books. Once a few minutes have passed, with Mollymauk watching Caleb with an open, gentle fondness colouring his smile, Caleb frees his hand and shrugs.

“You should have Jester look at that, if it hurts.” He advises, and Mollymauk nods mutely.

“I really didn’t mean to-” Mollymauk mutters again, and Caleb shrugs one of his shoulders haplessly.

“I'm fine.” He says and, upon seeing Mollymauk smile, he realises that he truly is

\-----

It is not with a bellow that the ogre is felled, but rather with a harrowing death rattle that leaves Caleb feeling cold. His chest is pounding with the urgent thrill of adrenaline and his fingertips are numb with the excited remnants of magic clinging to him still in the shadow of their battle.

Jester is busying herself with Yasha, who took a pretty shocking blow from a mace wider than Caleb is tall, simply in defence of Nott. He wants to go over and thank her, but he does not wish to interrupt Jester’s work, so he makes a mental note to pull the woman to one side later in the day.

The nape of his neck is burning terribly, and Caleb swipes at it with the back of his hand. He glances down to find a smear of crimson painted across his knuckles and he sighs as the vibrant liquid pools down into the hollows of his fingers. Mollymauk is falling by his side before he has time to even wipe the blood away, and the man takes hold of his hand between both of his own.

“It’s okay.” Caleb tells him surely, before the man can sputter out any apologies. In the throws of their battle Mollymauk had found it necessary to active one of his accursed swords, and Caleb can only follow the man’s judgement, he knows that their painful bite is becoming an increasingly rare occurrence and that their terrible pain is always heralded by Mollymauk’s desperate apologies and warnings. Caleb discovers that he trusts Mollymauk, enough so that he does not despise the swords anymore. Mollymauk, he believes, would not use them so liberally, and Caleb has found himself littered with fewer injuries in recent weeks than he has in his entire life. 

“Are you sure?” Mollymauk asks him instead, gently pressing his fingers to the nape of Caleb’s neck, he is always dreadfully warm, and Caleb ducks his head down to allow his comforting touch. “I always try to keep it light but sometimes I don’t have the time to measure the wound.”

“Sorry.” Caleb begins, wry laugh easily escaping him. “I did not realise that my head was on the floor, really Molly, you need to worry less.”

“We should go to Jester.” Mollymauk coaxes, his hand falling to rest against the crook of Caleb’s shoulder. _We,_ Caleb thinks, squashing down the urge to scoff, Mollymauk would never defer such a minor cut to Jester, what he means is for Jester to thread Caleb back together while Mollymauk nervously wrings his hands in waiting.

“I want you to do it.” Caleb interrupts, and Mollymauk blinks at him, his wide eyes startled. Then his expression softens, the deep creases of his concern giving way to that regal yet blatant affection that Caleb is still not quite used to seeing, for it still makes his heart stick in his throat with nerves.

So they burrow away to a secluded corner of the old, rotten barn and Caleb settles atop the coarse surface of a wooden crate, its fastenings partially eaten away by age and mould. Mollymauk comes up behind him, wordless all but for an aborted, sad noise in which Caleb assumes he must examine the wound. Then, there is the rustling for fabrics being shifted and the damp sound of water being poured before a frigid wetness presses against Caleb’s nape. He flinches at the touch and behind him Mollymauk chuckles, warm and close and incredibly intimate.

“If it is any consolation to you, i do not think that this one will scar.” He says after a bout of silence, his voice warmed with a smile. Caleb heaves and entirely faux, irritated huff.

“I do not think that it would make much of a difference.” Caleb says easily, shivering as Mollymauk presses a kiss to the back of his head, his even breathing tickling the thin hair there.

Then Mollymauk circles him, a firm hand pressed against the crook of his shoulder, spreading a curious heat over Caleb’s skin, almost giddy. The man folds down until his face is hanging mere inches away from Caleb’s own and Caleb cannot resist the urge to rove his eyes across the man and his slightly bitten lips, the endearing scrunch of his nose when he smiles, even the warm, bright colour of his eyes as they meet Caleb’s with a startling intensity.

When Mollymauk places a warm, calloused hand on his cheek he leans into the touch soundlessly. There is an ease that comes with the man, brash and so entirely soothing, that makes his simple touch seem so much like a homecoming.

Caleb is older now, and his skin is still a taught canvas of thin white lacerations, numerous and pale. Though, he thinks as Mollymauk smooths a thumb across his cheek, he does not truly mind the scars anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to every single person reading this, truly I cannot stress enough how much all of your feedback and your interactions have meant to me. I feel like I've achieved a lot personally by writing and finishing this story, and your support has made the experience so so so much more enjoyable. I am so happy to be part of this community, you all rock!
> 
> I am absolutely hoping to write more in the future, but if you want to chat in the meantime (or send me prompts) i'm on tumblr @ereborslionheart.


End file.
